


Learning to Breathe Underwater

by RoadsandBurrows



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bad Brain Stuff, Beach Summer Fun Buddies, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Connie Maheswaran Is Not Your Damsel In Distress, F/F, F/M, Fusion Shenanigans, Gen, Greg Universe Best Dad, Homeworld Is The Actual Worst, Implied Past Abuse, Jasper's Awful Backstory Does Not Excuse Her Being Dreadful, Lapis Lazuli Is Not Your Perfect Cinnamon Roll, Multi, Other, Peridot Does Not Want Your Human Friendship Disease, Post-Malachite Recovery, Redemption Arcs For Everyone, Robots, Slow Build, Steven Has The Best Alien Warrior Moms, Steven Universe Adopts Everyone, Tenuous Gem MagiScience, Yes I Mean Everyone - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 119,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoadsandBurrows/pseuds/RoadsandBurrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mysterious break-in at an underwater lab facility leads to Steven and the Crystal Gems recovering an injured, hurting, and mistrustful Lapis Lazuli, and Steven insists on enlisting his family to try and help Lapis get back on her feet and deal with the loss of everything she's ever known.  But with Peridot on the loose playing mad scientist, a swarm of Homeworld robots gunning for the Crystal Gems and any Gem associated with them, Jasper still at large, and evidence piling up that Malachite is still badly affecting Lapis, will Steven be able to help his new friend without exposing his loved ones to a whole host of terrible dangers?</p><p>Good thing Steven's loved ones are no slouches when it comes to dealing with serious trouble...</p><p>(Canon as of Chille Tid, completely and utterly jossed as of Stevenbomb 4.0.  As of Summer of Steven, this work is no longer part of a series and will not be continued.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been wonderful and supportive of LTBUW.
> 
> Unfortunately, while I had had hopes of continuing this as a series, I find that as canon progresses, I just can't do it.
> 
> ...mostly because I feel like I have what every fanwriter dreams of: a canon that has done me five or six better than I could have possibly hoped for in terms of plot, themes, relationships, and character development. LTBUW is very much a pre-Peridemption work (specifically, "The Answer" is where the game changed for me completely) and blossomed from frustration at what I perceived as canon's not really addressing the issue of Malachite and lack of Gem-centric episodes. BOY, was I wrong, I just had to wait a while for it to happen! But it makes LTBUW's characterization dated by its very nature.
> 
> Yannow what? I'm okay with that.
> 
> I may wind up writing more for SU as the series progresses. Maybe! For now I'm content to watch canon unfold and see where it takes us. There's a lot more to come and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. Hope you guys are too. The adventure continues... (31/07/2016)

“Steven, I’m not sure I understand this…pool party…thing.”

Steven looked up from where he and Connie were taking turns jumping on the kiddie-pool pump with intense concentration. 

Pearl had crossed one arm over her chest and had the look on her face where she wasn’t 100% sure what was going on and didn’t like it.  Steven gave her his best _everything is so totally okay, it’s more than okay, it’s **rad**_ smile.  Because it _was_ rad, and Pearl just hadn’t had a chance to get introduced to the wonders of the traditional human pool party.  “It’s really easy, Pearl, you just blow up the pool, fill it with water, grill the hot dogs and hamburgers, eat the hot dogs and hamburgers…”

“The water miiiiight be a problem, even if the pool is pretty tiny,” Connie said as she hopped up and down on the pump cushion with all her might.  “We’re a long way from a hose.”

“No problem, Connie, I just totally jacked the hose from the washing machine,” came Amethyst’s distant cry from the Temple’s hand.

“ _Amethyst, you leave that alone, it took me **months** to…”  _Pearl took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose, and said in a very serious, very level voice, “I didn’t make myself clear, Steven.  We live next to a _beach._ There’s an entire ocean to swim in right over there,” she added, sounding a little hopeful.

Steven looked at her for a moment, a little wibbly.  “You don’t like the party pool?”

“No, Steven, no, I, uh, love the party pool.  It’s so…contrasting.”  Pearl looked at the eye-searing kiddie pool covered in neon pink squids and hospital-green starfish, and visibly suppressed a shudder.  “But couldn’t we just take this down to the beach?”

“You mean where all the monsters usually come out of, right next to where all those Watermelon Stevens are chilling, and Malachite’s down there somewhere going stirrrr crazy?” Amethyst asked, appearing over the lip of the lighthouse hill and dragging a long black hose with her.  “Super-relaxing, P.”

Pearl looked around, saw Garnet approaching, and made a last-ditch appeal to authority.  “We don’t have to go in the _water,_ do we, Garnet?  I mean, _I_ know it’s unsafe…”

“Right,” Garnet said.  “This is going to be the safest of pool parties.  Pearl…”  There was a flash of light, and a moment later, Garnet was in full snorkeling gear with flippers and a bulky life jacket.  “Time to get your water wings on.”

Pearl sagged, defeated, and mumbled about eye-searing aesthetics and the smell of scorched mammal flesh being a _terrible tradition_ for a party, then twitched upright.  “Oh!  Steven!  Connie!  Sunscreen, you need sunscreen, I was doing some research the other day and humans are _horrifyingly_ prone to carcinogenic melanomas due to mismanagement of ozone-depleting chemicals.”

“Way ahead of you, ma’am,” Connie said, leaving the pump to go fish in her enormous bag.  “My dad packed a sun hat, epi-pen, insect repellant, extra towels, annnd…sunscreen!”

Garnet crouched down, testing the firmness of the inflatable pool.  When it made a satisfying squeak, she nodded to herself and rose.  “Amethyst, it’s hose time.”

“Booyeah!” Amethyst fed the laundry hose into the pool and turned on the tap, then stared as the pool slowly began to fill up.  “Man, I thought this would be faster.  Bo- _ring._ I’m gonna find us some good tunes.”  She wandered over to the picnic table where assorted bowls of unhealthy fried things and an elderly boom-box were set up, and started fiddling with the dials.  Pearl noted the insufficient water pressure and went to check out the length of the hose.

Garnet went and sat down next to Steven, who had gone quiet and was poking listlessly at one of the neon octopi.  “Steven?”

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.  Was it the water wings?”

Steven nodded miserably.

Garnet raised her scuba mask, which didn’t help much as she was still wearing her visor under it.  “We’re going to find her, Steven.  Thanks to you, we have a lot better idea of what we’re dealing with, and if Lapis Lazuli reached out to you in a dream, no matter what she said, she _is_ asking for help.  We’ll find a way to get to her and free her.”  Garnet sat in silence with Steven for a moment, and then added, “And we’ll punch Jasper into the stratosphere if we need to.”

Steven wiped his eyes and beamed up at Garnet, then turned, distracted by Connie’s giggle.  “Hey, what’s up, Dog-Copter?”

“Uh, this…this sun hat is my mom’s, but it doesn’t fit me, do you want to try it on, Steven?”

Steven hurried over and perched the offending hat on his head.  The cap was ringed with garishly coloured ceramic fruit, and he cocked it at a jaunty angle.  “Very fashionable.  I look nutritious _and_ delicious!”

Connie nodded seriously.  “Now I can tell her we ate a balanced meal at this pool party, not just burgers.  All hail the plastic hat fruit.”  She and Steven gave each other a complicated high-five, missing Garnet’s grin.

Pearl and Amethyst were arguing over what kind of music to choose (“Come _on,_ Pearl-snickety, you can’t play _Chopin_ at a pool party!”  “I’ll have you know Chopin was quite the party animal when Rose and I met him, and _what_ did you just call me?”) when Greg Universe came panting up the lighthouse hill, more red-faced than usual, with a portable barbeque under one arm and his phone outstretched in the other.

Steven hurried up to him, losing a few of his hat’s fake grapes.  Garnet followed him closely, managing a dignified stride despite her flippers.  “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Uh…you guys might need to deflate the party pool, I think we’ve got a problem.”  Greg held his phone up to Garnet, who took it and read it, her pool party accoutrements disappearing one by one.

By now, Connie had come over with Amethyst and Pearl in tow, all of them watching apprehensively as Garnet’s expression darkened.  She looked up finally.  “There’s been an attack on the Marie Cousteau Marine Research Facility about six miles up the coast.  The perpetrator is described as “unknown, dubiously humanoid, and green”.”

Pearl’s hands closed into fists.  “Malachite!”

“Gems,” Garnet said, “to the warp pad.  There’s no time to lose…”  She paused when Amethyst tugged on her wrist.

“Garn, I hate to pee on the parade, but, uh, do we even _have_ a warp pad anywhere near the whatever-it’s-called marine research thingy?”

The Crystal Gems looked at each other, and then at Greg, who took his phone back and set down the barbeque.  “I’ll give you guys a lift.  No music, I promise.”

“Serious van trip?” Steven asked his dad.

“Serious van trip, with serious dad driving.”  They shared a smile.  “I mean, musical theatre sing-alongs are still okay, just gotta tone down that bass a little.”

“Can we fit the pool in the back of the van?  Then we could have a road trip _and_ a pool party all at once!”

“Uh…maybe save that for later, Steven.”

“Aw,” Amethyst muttered as all of them hurried down the hill, “van pool party pooper.”

“Connie,” Pearl said as Connie hurried to catch up with them, carrying her pool party bag.  “I’m not sure you should…”

“I brought my sword,” Connie said, breathless, and showed the handle poking out of the bag as evidence.

Pearl stared.  “Your parents packed your _sword_ for the pool party?”

Connie went a little red.  “They don’t…I told them it was a novelty umbrella.”

Amethyst elbowed her lightly, almost knocking her off her feet.  “Hey, whatever works, right?  You’re getting pretty good at lying to those squares!”

“Amethyst!  Well.  _I_ wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but quick thinking and improvisation _is_ the mark of an excellent sword fighter,” Pearl said.  “Full marks for preparedness, Connie.”

Connie perked up immediately, and they all headed for the van at the bottom of the hill.

* * *

 

“Pearl,” Garnet said, once they were all safely loaded into Greg’s van and headed for the research facility, “we may be facing a fight, but if that news report is right, the damage is already done and Malachite could be well away by now…”

“Yes?”

“That means we’re going to be dealing with human scientists.”

There was a charged silence in the car.

“That means you’ve got to be at least a little bit polite to them.”

“I’m _always_ polite!” Pearl burst out.

“You laughed at Isaac Newton for a solid half hour.  Then you patted him on his wig and said his ignorance was charming.”

“That was _one time.”_

“You also really demoralized that guy Einstein when he made a pilgrimage to the temple that one time.”

“Well, his relativity work _was_ painfully flawed, and he _did_ take my suggestions into consideration…”

“You made some unkind remarks about his hair in the process.”

Pearl sulked in the back seat for a bit as Steven and Connie stared at her round-eyed, and then snapped her fingers and pointed at Garnet.  _“Rosalind Franklin.”_

“That’s true.  I forgot about her.”

“ _I_ remember her,” Amethyst put in.  “That was, like, the day after Rose asked me to do some chores or whatever, and then _Pearl_ did them and Rose gave _me_ a hug and told me how great it was that I was contributing, and Pearl just about blew her stack…”

“I just _don’t think it’s right for people to take credit for other people’s hard work,”_ Pearl ground out, bright blue spots appearing high on her cheeks.  With a visible effort, she composed herself.  “Besides, those people she was working with were shady and honestly quite sub-par. If humans are going to get anywhere, they need _proper_ scientists, however misguided, not…scam artists.”

“You _met_ Rosalind Franklin?” Connie demanded, eyes sparkling.

Pearl looked back at her, blinking.  “Yes, Connie, I…did?”

“How about Lise Meitner?  Wu Chien-Shiung?  _Asima Chatterjee?”_

As Connie and Pearl became more animated, Greg checked in the back carefully.  Squeezed in between Amethyst and Connie, Steven was staring straight ahead, arms crossed and hands tucked into his armpits, jiggling one leg nervously.

* * *

 

The head researcher at the facility brought a flock of nervous graduate students, junior researchers, and interns with her, all of whom were _very happy_ to see the Crystal Gems come to deal with their “monster problem”, but no Malachite.

“I don’t see any rampaging fusions or smoking fires around here,” Amethyst said, as she examined the clean, gleaming walls of the facility, and the expansive underwater viewing window encircling the center’s small cafeteria and visitor’s lounge, with a critical eye.  Shoals of bright fish darted by as Steven and Connie ran to it, entranced.  “Seriously?  You can’t just call us out for big green monsters and then fall down on delivery!”

“Oh, it didn’t _destroy_ anything, at least nothing obvious,” the head researcher said quickly.  “Half of our operations are sea floor and water toxicity focused, to say nothing of the migration and reproduction tracking we do.  A crack or hole in the wrong place would have spelled disaster for our whole facility and years of hard work!  No, the break-in was very neat, we didn’t notice anything wrong until we checked the cameras and found some of our supplies missing.”

“ _That_ doesn’t sound much like Malachite…” Pearl put her chin in her hand and looked around carefully.

“But you still have a ‘monster problem’,” Garnet said.

“Maybe it would be easier if I just showed you…”

* * *

 

“You guys have security cameras for a fish research center?”  Greg asked, peering over Garnet and Pearl’s shoulder.  “Really?  Huh.  Maybe I should get some for It’s A Wash.”

“We have a lot of propriety research here, Mr. Universe.” Dr. Jeong, the head researcher, was rewinding a VHS tape.  “Plus, we managed to annoy some people at Albion Petroleum by blowing the whistle on a leak they’d caused trying to tap an underwater reserve not too far from Ocean Town.  There have been threats.”  She paused the video.  “Nothing quite like this, though.  Here’s footage from 4:35 this morning.  Some of us work late, and some work early, but never quite that late _or_ that early, so the facility was empty.”

“It looks like a…dark green…blur,” Greg said, as Pearl and Garnet studied the tape.  “Oh, hey, that’s the cafeteria upstairs.  Wow, and that’s a _lot_ of static.”

“That’s the other thing,” Dr. Jeong said, getting up.  “All our digital cameras, anything hooked up to an extranet connection, glitched out, but the older cameras running straight to tapes only went static-y and fuzzy for about two hours.”  She took out a stack of tapes and handed them to Pearl, who stared at them as if she’d just been handed a pile of rocks.  “These tapes are from some of the less important areas of the facility: staff kitchen, senior and group staff offices, collection and treatment center, and the algae room.  All of them show our mystery green invader, but there’s usually a glitch for about fifteen minutes or so before the cameras start recording normally again.”

Steven, who had pulled himself together by now, was crowded into the security station doorway with Connie and Amethyst.  He turned to Connie and pulled a clownish face.  “This is serious business.  It’s exactly the kind of mystery that needs a rugged, yet sensitive and flawed, head detective, and his faithful and upright right-hand woman who doesn’t actually have a right hand but secretly knows kung-fu…”

Connie’s eyes sparkled.  “CSI: Boise!  It’s a good thing this didn’t happen in a corn field,” she added more soberly.

“I know!  _So_ many people get killed in corn fields on CSI: Boise.”  Steven’s lower lip trembled dramatically for a moment.  “Alas for all those people who died amidst ears that could not hear.”

“CSI what now?” Amethyst demanded, trotting into the security room to help Pearl before she dropped the tape stack.  The kids developed guilty looks under Greg, Garnet, and Pearl’s combined stares.

“It’s a _very scientifically accurate_ show about crime scene investigators in the big city,” Connie said carefully. 

“Except Connie’s not allowed to watch it at home.”

Amethyst grinned.  “Oh _yeah,_ I love that show!  Best part is when they zoom the camera through the victims’ eye sockets and like, their bullet holes to show the organ damage.  Pretty classic!  Ahh, intestines, always good for a laugh.”

Greg raised his eyebrows.  “I’m not actually sure _Steven’s_ allowed to watch that at home either.”

“But Dad,” protested Steven, “the brave investigators of CSI: Boise are super-dedicated to the cause of justice and finding out who the real bad guys are!  And the coroner has this great friendship with the head detective because of their shared troubled and tragic history!”

“Their husbands were both abducted by the Man in the Purple Suit,” Connie added, “ _never to be seen again_.  Except my theory is that the coroner’s husband actually _is_ the Man in the Purple Suit, because we’ve seen a lot of thematic elements in flashbacks suggesting that…sorry I’ll stop talking.”

“Connie, it’s okay!  It’s a really good theory!  But, yeah,” Steven said, “we have a bona fide mysteryon our and that’s going to take determination, human and Gem ingenuity, and a _lot_ of fingerprint dust to solve.”

Connie scratched her chin thoughtfully.  “And maybe a deerskin hat and a pipe.  That always works for Certainsecure Domicile.  Oh, and there’s a few things I could pick up from home, too.”

“Oh yeah!  Do we have a deerskin hat anywhere, Dad?”

“Well, maybe…I’d have to check the back office at the carwash, that’s where I usually keep your old Halloween stuff.  As long as you guys promise not to watch the…zooming eyeball camera segments anymore, okay?  Sheesh.  I should show you two some Little Butler.  Now _there’s_ a quality show.  Good clean fun.”

“Steven, Gems don’t _have_ fingerprints,” Pearl protested, reaching out as the two kids raced off, and squeaked as she dropped a tape.  Garnet caught it before it hit the ground, and nodded at Steven and Greg.

“Alright.  This isn’t what we normally deal with, and we can definitely use Connie and Greg’s help with this.  Gems, time to buckle down.  Let’s see just what Malachite was after.”

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Greg was back with the promised deerskin hat and a set of scuba gear (“Just in case!”), and Connie came with him, still toting her beach bag and wearing a very serious expression.  She met Steven in the main underwater lab as Greg made a detour to the security room, and together they unpacked her bag.

“Okay, it’s not exactly CSI: Boise but it’s the best I could do.  Dad has a few days off so I borrowed his flashlight, his old handcuffs, and a couple of shower caps so we don’t contaminate any evidence.  I told my parents it was for a school project.  And my magnifying glass, a microscope…”

“Connie, you are 110% ready for everything!”  Steven donned his deerstalker cap.  “And now, so am I.  Numbers!  Floating in the air!  Mysterious deductions about strangers in the form of text messages!  I feel smarter already,” he confided to Connie.

Connie put down the flashlight and looked up at Steven.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  If it was Malachite…it’s weird for her to sneak into someplace and steal things.  Not exactly characteristic behaviour, from what you’ve told me.”

Steven’s smile got a little fixed, and then faded.  He looked away.  “I know.   I’m…kinda scared.  If Malachite’s not acting like Lapis _or_ Jasper, then that means…what Garnet said might have already happened.  And maybe I’m too late to save her.”

“You won’t have to save her alone, and if _that’s_ what happened, we’ll figure something out.”  Connie gestured firmly.  “You’ve got the Crystal Gems on your side, they’re like, masters of fusion.  Heck, we know a thing or two about it ourselves!  And then there’s Garnet.  If anybody can figure out how to help Malachite separate, it’s us.”

Steven looked at the hand she was offering him, took it, and squeezed it, his expression brightening.  “Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“So let’s go find out what she was looking for and why.  Uh…” Steven paused and peered over Connie’s shoulder into the octopus tank.

A very purple octopus made its way up the side of the tank and waved a tentacle at them.  “’Sup, guys?  Just interviewing some witnesses.  And by interviewing I mean chilling with the coolest crew in this lab.”

“The octopuses?”

“Or…octopi?  It should probably be octopi,” Connie said.

Octo-methyst shrugged.  “Why not?  They’re probably smarter than the grad students.  Didn’t see anything interesting, though.”  Amethyst clambered out of the tank, plopped to the floor, and shape-shifted back into humanoid form.  “Except, if you’re in the cafeteria, they said to skip the fish and chips, the researchers sneak ‘em pieces and the fish is gluey and _nasty_.”

* * *

 

In the visitor’s lounge, Garnet was sorting through a pile of interns’ reports on their lab contents, looking increasingly sour, while Pearl paced back and forth, throwing up images and texts as holograms from her gem.

“…could possibly have learned to phase through solid matter—no, no, that wouldn’t work even _with_ the hydromancy.  Would she have the know-how to damage the computerized cameras?  Neither of those two know anything about human tech, so why would Malachite, unless she’s a much faster learner than we’d theorized.  The door was broken into using a very delicate probing technique with only minimal damage to the lock.  The areas that she spent the most time in seem to be the ones where the digital cameras went out, where most of the expensive research equipment was kept—Q-drives, oscillators, computerized everything…Garnet, I’m not sure if we haven’t drawn the wrong conclusions here!  Can’t you just use future vision to find out what’s going on?”

“You _know_ it doesn’t work like that, Pearl,” Garnet said, with a hint of a growl.  Pearl flinched, and Garnet inclined her head in brief apology.  “If it had been me I’d just have punched the lock on their front door.  Or just punched the door.  I can tell you from personal experience, most fusions aren’t interested in taking the indirect approach.  It’s a feature, not a bug,” she added.

“But…Sardonyx…oh, I suppose you’re right.”  Pearl’s holograms disappeared and she turned to Garnet and the stack of reports.  “Why don’t you let me have a look at those?”

“Don’t want you to overwork yourself.”

Pearl’s eyes gleamed with barely-contained desperation.  “But those are _lists.”_

Garnet cocked her head, then nodded and moved over, patting the couch where she’d been.  Pearl settled in next to her, _seiza_ style, and began methodically plowing through the reports, her body language relaxing.

Eventually, Greg wandered in to join them, as did a bored dispirited Amethyst, with nothing to show; Greg got the two of them veggie dogs from the cafeteria, and two more for Connie and Steven when they lugged in Connie’s CSI: Beach City bag.

“We did find a dent on the wall in the server room that looks like somebody punched it,” Steven told his dad between bites.  “Connie took a picture of it with her phone.  Intern Laura says it wasn’t there yesterday.”

“This makes no sense at all,” Pearl muttered.  “Why would Malachite…the researchers are just missing weird little human gew-gaws, nothing that would be of use to a Gem!  Dr. Jeong even says she can’t find her executive clicky-ball thing from her desk.  Who wants one of those?”

“You mean the ones that have five balls and only the ones at the end do the clicky thing?  Newton’s cradles,” Garnet said, causing Pearl to blush.  “I would.” 

Pearl stared at her.  “You _would?”_

“A really big one.”

Pearl looked momentarily derailed.  “Where would you _put_ it, though?  And what would you _do_ with it.”

“I’d get a really big desk and watch it doing the clicky thing.”

Connie, who’d been chewing thoughtfully on her veggie dog, suddenly stopped and stared fixedly over Greg’s shoulder.  Steven looked up from his own food, looked at Connie’s expression, and followed her gaze.

“…dunno, P, I mean, we use human tech all the time…”

“Well, yes, but for things that are _practical,_ like…microwaves and washing machines.  And ovens.  What would Malachite want with an oven?  None of this stuff goes in things like ovens anyway, it’s all high tech, and we _know_ of a rogue Gem who works with high tech…”  Pearl trailed off.  “Steven, are you alright?”

Silently, Steven stood up and walked towards the viewing window.  The research station was at a shallow enough point on the coastline that, even this close to the bottom, light lanced down from above, giving a remarkably clear 180 degree view of the ocean around it.  A couple of nurse sharks were gliding past, and a shoal of tiny silver fish swam and darted like a cloud of shiny needles.  Crabs trotted crabwise over the rocks and sand, not disturbing much with their progress.

Something was drifting towards them through the water, the only still thing in a scene of movement and life.

“Is that a _dead body?”_ Amethyst shoved the rest of her hot-dog into her mouth and glued herself to the viewing window next to Steven, whose breath was fogging the glass.  “Gross!  Hey guys, come check it out!”

Connie stood up to follow them, but Greg gestured her back quickly.  “Hang on a second, kiddo, please.  Steven,” he said, his voice rising, “you don’t want to see that, come with me and Connie, we’re gonna go upstairs to reception and call the police…”

“You know, I’ve _seen_ humans in water,” Pearl said, a little distantly, moving towards the window herself.  Steven remained where he was, as if he’d gone deaf to Greg and the world around him.  “They don’t…move like that.  They sink, or they float, they don’t just sort of hang in between and…drift…”  She trailed off into stunned silence as a ray of light fell on the strangely floating figure, illuminating the soft lines of a flowing skirt and messy hair tangled with seaweed.

Garnet was at their side immediately.  “Gems, move back and get ready.”  Pearl and Amethyst obeyed immediately.  Garnet equipped her enormous fists looked down at Steven, hands now pressed to the glass, and her voice softened.  “That means you too, Steven.”

“Garnet,” Steven choked out, “I think it’s…”

As Greg and the Gems watched in growing horror, the blue figure bonked gently against the viewing window glass.  It didn’t respond to the impact, but the physics and the motion of the water turned her enough that they could see her face.

Pearl started to lower her spear.  “The current…of course, it flows this way, that’s why the research station is situated in this location.  It must have carried her here.”

“Whoa,” Amethyst said, her voice unusually soft.  “She looks like she got in a fight with, like, three sharks and a grizzly bear.”

Amethyst’s words seemed to snap Steven out of his shocked trance, and he began to bang on the glass furiously with both fists.  Garnet tried to stop him and he shook her off, yelling at the top of his lungs, _“Lapis!  Lapis Lazuli, wake up!  You’ve got to wake up!  Can you hear me?”_

Lapis’ eyes opened.

Garnet snatched Steven up and withdrew five feet from the glass, holding him one-armed in an iron grip as Pearl and Amethyst took a defensive formation in front of her.

One of Lapis’ eyes was swollen almost shut, but she fixed the other on Steven, and there was no expression in it or in her battered face.  Her lips formed the words, “Steven…I…failed…”

The current bumped her a second time against the glass, and there was a sudden burst cloud of white bubbles, rushing upwards.  They cleared in time for the Crystal Gems to watch a teardrop-shaped blue gem sink slowly towards the ocean floor.

Greg, looking pale, said, “I left my scuba gear upstairs, how about I just…”

“Nah, I got this,” Amethyst said quickly.  “Sharkmethyst to the rescue, G-man, I’ll go grab her in the flick of a fin.”  She dissolved her whip and bolted upstairs.

Connie went over to stand by Steven, who was motionless in Garnet’s arms, and said, “What did she mean, ‘I failed’?”

“She means, Jasper’s gotten loose,” Garnet said.  “And Malachite is no longer our biggest problem.”


	2. Hot Dog Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis regenerates, warm fuzzy feelings fail to emerge between her and the Crystal Gems, Steven uses Cookie Cat to make a point, and Amethyst tries to make friends in her own special way. Meanwhile, the Crystal Gems narrow their suspect list for the lab break-in.

After long, careful consideration, Steven gently picked up the blue blown-glass salad bowl Pearl had bought from one of Beach City’s ubiquitous “antique” shops (“Not for actual salads, Steven,” she’d said, “I just like the aesthetics and you can, mm, use it to put little things in so I can sort them out later, like stray buttons, or _the pebbles Amethyst keeps purposely leaving all over the Temple”_ ), carried it away from the line of glass containers on the kitchen counter, filled it with water from the sink, and carefully and ceremoniously placed Lapis Lazuli’s intact gem in it.

Perched on the counter with Amethyst, Connie peered down into the bowl.  “Interesting choice, Steven.”

“Well, the vase is way too narrow, she might break it when she regenerates, or…I don’t know, regenerate as a mini-Lapis.  And the goldfish bowl’s way too confining.  It might make her nervous, or she might turn into a fish.  The salad bowl’s perfect.  It’s open top, it’s clear, and it’s even the right colour!”

“When did we have goldfish?” Greg asked from where he was attending to the portable barbeque by the stove.  “Or, rather, when did you guys have goldfish?”

“Oh,” Pearl said, sorting through piles of paper from the research station with unusually tense focus, “we got one three years ago.  It died.”

“I ate it,” Amethyst whispered to Connie, who choked back a horrified giggle.

Steven peered over the counter accusingly at Garnet and Pearl.  “ _You_ told me that Mister Kintsugi had made a bid for freedom back to his home in the sea!”

“Actually, we told you he’d gone to swim with the fishes,” Garnet said.  “Which was metaphorically accurate.  But we’re sorry we lied to you, Steven.”

Pearl winced.  “You were very young, Steven, we didn’t think you would have handled a, mm, dead pet very well...”

“Please just tell me the truth next fish time.  Okay?”  Steven sighed and went back to watching the Lapis Bowl.  Connie dropped down from the counter and joined him, their poses identical, chins on their folded arms.

After about two minutes, Connie said to Steven, “Do you think she’ll come back a lot differently from before?”

“Mm, maybe.  Maybe she’ll get longer hair or a new outfit, or maybe even a cool hat.  I think Lapis would look good with a hat.”  Steven looked up at Amethyst, who was feigning nonchalance while fiddling with various pieces of plastic cutlery taken from the aborted pool party and strewn across the kitchen counter.  “What do you think?”

“Dunno,” Amethyst said lightly, “could be.  Garn and Rose never were big on, like, _huge_ makeovers.  Rose never even changed her dress or anything.  I think.  I mean, _I_ never actually saw Rose get, you know,” Amethyst looked at Garnet, “poofed.”

Garnet’s arms were folded, and she stared silently at the Lapis Bowl, poker-faced.

“Annnnyway,” Amethyst went on, “me and Pearl are the only Gems _I_ know who like making big changes after they regenerate.  P’s the fussy fashionista,” she paused and glanced at Pearl, who didn’t even look up from her report, “and I just…y’know…like updating my funky style sometimes.  No big deal.”

The uncomfortable silence stretched, with Connie and Steven growing tenser by the moment as Amethyst kept picking at the forks and the two older Crystal Gems stared at the bowl, until Greg put his spatula down with a click.  “So, who wants hamburgers?”

“Steven, I have _serious misgivings_ about all of this,” Pearl snapped suddenly.  “I know you care about her, but she tried to drown Connie and she almost killed Greg!  She’s… _mercurial._ We don’t even know what to expect when she regenerates!”

“So…that’s a ‘no’ from Pearl, not unexpected…”

“Greg,” Pearl said, still a little desperately, “why aren’t _you_ taking this seriously?  She’s a _Homeworld Gem.”_

“I’m definitely not gonna deny that whole thing was scary, and I’m not completely happy she’s in the house, but…”  Greg shrugged and sat down at the counter next to the kids and Amethyst.  “From everything you’ve told me, she tried to help you guys, in her own way.  And it’s not like she’s got anywhere else to go.”

“You’re being awfully forgiving considering that she stole your ocean,” Garnet said.

“Well, yeah, that was actually pretty terrible.  I’m not saying let’s just let her off the hook for that, but…she _is_ a Homeworld Gem.  From what Rose told me,” Greg glanced at Steven and Connie and cleared his throat carefully, “apart from her, and you guys, most Gems don’t exactly have the best role models for…growing up and learning _not_ to do things like steal oceans.  Or head-butt little kids.  Or…whatever that thing was in the Kindergarten that we’re not going to talk about tonight because this is definitely not the time,” he finished under Garnet’s stare.

Garnet carried on just looking at him for a moment, and then gave a tiny nod.  “Okay.  But it’s not just that.  I have some real concerns about how long she’s spent being Malachite.”

Greg raised his eyebrows as he plated a couple of hamburgers for Steven and Connie, along with a big helping of carrot sticks.  “But you’ve been Garnet for…well, for longer than humans have had writing.”

“Yeah.  It’s _great.”_ Garnet’s brief grin disappeared. _“_ But I’ve got to ask you, Greg, what’s the longest you’ve ever seen Opal fused for?”

“Um.  Let’s see, what now…there was that one time…uh, fifteen minutes?”

Pearl and Amethyst both blushed a little and looked away from each other.

“Well, come on, there was that time with Sugilite…”

“Yeah, that was complicated, and it tired me and Amethyst both out pretty badly,” Garnet said.

“Rose and I,” Pearl said, with a hint of a smile, “managed to sustain Rainbow Quartz for a full week once.”  She lifted her chin a little at Greg.  “And we were _very_ close.  But it was still slightly disorienting.  I was playing with long curly hair I didn’t _have_ for days afterwards.”  She sighed.  “Not that I minded…”

“Lapis Lazuli and Jasper have spent the last couple of months trapped in each other’s minds and hating each other’s guts,” Garnet went on.  “It can be dangerous enough to stay in a fusion for too long with someone, even someone you really care about, if there’s not…balance.”  Pearl had started fidgeting with the corner of a file folder, and Amethyst was breaking the tines off her plastic fork one by one.  “I don’t think there was any balance there.  Just…jailer and prisoner.  Trading off.  It won’t have been good for her mind.  _Either_ of their minds.  And neither of them were stable to start with.”

“Lapis was scared, Garnet,” Steven protested around a mouthful of hamburger.  “You can’t blame her for being mad and wanting to fight you guys!”

“Scared people can be _very_ dangerous, Steven.  And being scared doesn’t mean they’re not responsible for their actions.”

Greg put a hamburger plate down next to Amethyst and piled three inches of ketchup, relish, and engine oil on it to distract her.  “So, uh, I’ll tell you guys what.  It’s a slow week.  I’ll just shut down the carwash, put up a sign, and bring the van over here and sleep outside the temple.  Or, you know, wherever you guys are comfortable with.  If anybody needs a little It’s A Wash ‘N Buff TLC, they can always give me a shout, and I can do my guitar lessons out of the back of the van anyway.”

Steven’s eyes got very large and sparkly.  “Guitar dad: now playing on _your_ beach!”

“You’re gonna have to make some new fliers, kiddo!”  Greg glanced around at the Gems.  “I mean, that’s if none of you mind…”

“Hey, it’s your call, Greg-o,” Amethyst mumbled around her food.

Pearl folded her hands in her lap and, after some visible effort, said, “We’d appreciate it, Greg.”  A moment later, she added, “Even if you’d be about as much use as a tin umbrella in a thunderstorm against Lapiz Lazuli, considering your body is mostly water…”

Garnet put a quelling hand on Pearl’s shoulder and nodded at Greg.  “Couch still alright?”

“Oh yeah.  Super comfy!”  Greg’s smile was a bit strained.  “Hope having your old man around won’t cramp your style too much, Steven…Steven?”

Steven looked up guiltily from where he had dropped a couple of carrot sticks into the Lapis Bowl.  “I thought maybe if the water she’s in is _nutritious_ water, she’ll wake up faster.”

Garnet shrugged, and looked at the paper pile.  “Our mystery might have to wait until this particular problem gets resolved.”

Greg stared at the orange sticks settled in next to the blue gem, sighed, and ruffled Steven’s hair.  “This is gonna be a pretty interesting couple of weeks, Steven.”

* * *

 

The ‘couple of weeks’ was only three days.

Steven and Pearl were doing dishes in the kitchen when something cracked audibly.  Pearl lifted the plate she’d been drying and examined it against the light, only to drop it when Steven grabbed her elbow.  _“Pearl, look!”_

Lapis Lazuli’s gem was glowing, rising slowly out of the cracked salad bowl (which now had two carrot sticks, a piece of broccoli, a brussel sprout, and a slice of salami courtesy of Amethyst floating in it).

Pearl promptly pulled Steven behind herself, pulled the plug on the dishwater, and drew her spear from her gem, pinning him against the sink to protect him bodily.  _“Garnet!  Amethyst!_ Come quick, it’s happening!”

Amethyst and Garnet, who had taken to spending less time in their rooms and more time hanging out in the beach house part of the Temple, reading comics and watching movies and never quite letting the what Steven had dubbed the Lapis Bowl out of their sight, immediately scrambled up and down from their perches, ran around slamming the Temple doors and windows, and surrounded the rising, glowing figure, weapons at ready. 

Outside on the beach, Jenny Pizza’s slow, painstaking rendition of the opening chords of “Born To Be Wild” went on under Greg’s patient tutelage.

Steven squeezed out from behind Pearl and pulled down hard on her spear.  “Pearl, Garnet—guys, _no,_ don’t point weapons at her!  Garnet, you _said_ scared people are dangerous!”

Garnet hesitated.

“Do you really want her to wake up and be scared?” Steven persisted.  “Remember Centipeedle?”

Slowly, Garnet lowered her fists, and Pearl set her spear butt down on the kitchen floor.  Amethyst scoffed and absorbed her whip back into her gem.  “Okay, Steven, but if she tries anything…”

The glowing, amorphous blob resolved itself suddenly into a familiar shape, and Lapis Lazuli floated gracefully downwards.

Unfortunately, her landing spot put her left foot directly in the salad bowl that had been her home for the last three days.  She barely had time to look down before her foot went right out from under her, the bowl went flying to smash on the kitchen floor, and she tumbled head over heels off the counter and cracked her head on the living room coffee table, yelping out what sounded like a curse composed of static.

“ _Whoa,”_ Amethyst cried, “ass over _teakettle!_ Super-dignified.”

The Crystal Gems jumped the counter themselves and crowded around her, Pearl picking Steven up to avoid him stepping in broken glass.  In the silence, Steven asked, panic rising in his voice, “Are you okay, Lapis?  Did you break your neck?  Do you need to go back in your nutritious gem water?”

Lapis opened her eyes, took one look at Garnet, flattened herself against the floor wild-eyed, and then focused on him.  Her eyes went wide.  “Steven!  What are you doing in my head again??  I told you I could handle this!”

_“Um,”_ said Garnet, very significantly.

Lapis stared at her for a second, then sagged.  “Oh.  I’d been hoping _you_ were just more hallucinations.”

“You’re _very_ _welcome_ for us not just bubbling you and leaving you in the Burning Room, for all the stunts you’ve pulled,”Pearl snapped.  “Now, what do you have to say for yourself?”  She prodded Lapis’ foot with the butt end of her spear.

The reaction was immediate.  Lapis went from sprawling to snarling and vertical in seconds, her face inches from Pearl’s.  “Don’t— _touch_ —me.  _Ever.”_ She made a sharp gesture, as if trying to pull something to her.

A few drops of soapy water slithered through the air towards her from the dish rack.  Lapis looked at them uncomprehendingly, and then at Garnet, who glared at her.  “ _That’s_ not happening again.  Now, you’re in the Crystal Temple, Steven has asked us to not bubble you, but…”

Steven’s eye fell on the half-empty bottle of Orange Kix Soda (“Like An Orange Kick In The Teeth!”) he’d left on the kitchen counter when he’d gone to help Pearl with the dishes, at the same moment Lapis’ did.  Lapis thrust her arm out, her expression darkening.

Exactly two cups of orange soda, it turned out, did not make for an impressive set of water wings.  Flapping them furiously, she was barely able to get herself more than a couple of inches off the ground.  By this point, the Crystal Gems had lowered their weapons, their expressions of wary triumph turning to worry and vague pity.  After about fifteen seconds of this increasingly futile display, Amethyst rolled her eyes and Pearl lowered her spear.

“Is…is that making you feel better?” Steven asked Lapis gently.  Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was flapping as hard as she could, but when he reached up and took her hand, the soda splashed to the floor, and so did Lapis.  She curled in on herself, knees to her forehead, one hand still locked with Steven’s.

After a minute, she said, “What are yougoing to do with me?”

“Um,” Pearl said, and looked to Garnet, still gripping her spear as if it were a ward of some kind.  After a further silence, she hissed through her teeth, _“Garnet, I may have_ slightly _mishandled this situation…”_

“No, you did fine,” Garnet said.  “Lapis Lazuli, I was trying to tell you that you’re not our prisoner and we’re not your enemies.  You tried to protect Steven and we appreciate that.  You can stay here or go, but Steven would like you to stay.”  Garnet looked down at Steven for confirmation, and he nodded so furiously he almost hurt his neck.  “That’s the essentials.  The specifics are that you can stay here _as long as_ there’s no funny business.”

“Funny business,” Lapis repeated, listless, still staring at her knees.  “Okay.  Because I’m _so hilarious._ That was my whole job.  I was the _funny_ mirror.”  She looked up at the Crystal Gems and narrowed her eyes.

After a moment of prickled quiet, Amethyst said, “Wow, I can tell you’ve been in the ocean a while because you are just _full_ of salt, aren’t ya.”  She elbowed Pearl, who gave her a blank look.

Lapis sighed deeply, as if Amethyst had personally and permanently disappointed her, and then scanned them again.  “The three of you…you’re really all that’s left to protect Steven? _”_

Amethyst bristled.  “Hey, sister, we’re _more_ than enough Gem to handle your buddy…”

_“She is not my **buddy,”**_ Lapis shouted, her voice rising sudden and sharp.  “Don’t even _mention…_ I don’t want…” 

Lapis curled back in on herself and tried to shake Steven off, but he held on like a particularly small and curly-haired limpet.  “Hey.  Hey, Bob?”

Lapis raised her face and blinked at him, head cocked in confusion as tears streamed down her face.  “It’s Lapis.  Steven, you _know_ my name.”

“He’s…been raised with a lot of human humour,” Pearl said carefully.  “It’s extremely nonsensical even with a few thousand years of practice, and it _changes_ too fast.”

“They’re a very memetic species,” Garnet said.  “It’s fun sometimes.  You’ll get used to it.”

Lapis shook her head hard.  “I still don’t understand…he’s a human, but he’s…somehow Rose Quartz as well?”

Just at that moment, Greg unlocked the Temple door and came in.  “Hi, guys, did anythi—o _kay_ obviously something happened.”

“Dad!  Look, Lapis came back!”

Lapis tugged at Steven’s wrist, and when she had his attention, whispered, “What’s a _Dad?”_ She paused, blinked, and sniffed herself.  “And why do I…smell like cured meat?”

“Uh…this might take some explaining.”

* * *

 

“So,” Garnet said, as Lapis picked at a slice of anchovy pizza without putting any of it in her mouth, “you’re absolutely certain you didn’t go anywhere near where we found you floating, when you were Malachite?”

“I told you,” Lapis said, “I picked the deepest, darkest trench I could find and kept us—kept her there.”

“If Jasper had overpowered you and taken control of Malachite for a few minutes,” Garnet began, but was stopped by Lapis’ weird, bitter laugh.

“If _she_ had taken control, your city would be in ruins and your temple would be a smoking crater by now.”  She pulled an anchovy in half, a strange smile playing on her lips, and then she stopped smiling and looked straight ahead, her expression blank.  “What was I saying?”

“You were saying you didn’t lose control of Malachite and you didn’t go anywhere with her,” Garnet said patiently.

“That takes her off our suspect list,” Pearl muttered.  “Should we be prioritizing finding her over this business at the research center?  Jasper’s the more immediate danger.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to go looking to find her,” Garnet said slowly.  “She’s a lot of things, but she’s not subtle.”  She lowered her sun visor and stared at Lapis.  “Unless she’s learned to be, that is.”

Lapis was throwing bits of anchovy on the floor, where Lion had taken up station to snatch them up and eat them.  Eventually, she looked up and made eye contact with Garnet.  “Do I look very subtle to you?  Anyway, when we separated, I didn’t just let her go without a fight.  She’s not likely to be in much better shape than I was when you found me.”

“Right,” Garnet said.  “So, Steven doesn’t go anywhere alone until we find out where Jasper is, what shape she’s in, and what she’s up to.  Actually,” she amended, “nobody goes anywhere alone until we find that out.  I don’t want her catching anybody by themselves.”

The Crystal Gems sat in silence.  Eventually, Pearl said, “What about humans?  Are they…would Beach City be in danger?”

Lapis shrugged one shoulder.  “Why would they be?  They’re not a threat to her.  I don’t think she considers them much more than bugs.”  She looked around.  “No offense to your…friends.  And Steven’s Dad-human.  I still don’t understand why he thinks I need food.  What’s a ‘grocery store’, anyway?”

“Humans think everyone needs food.  If Jasper shows up in Beach City, we’ll find out pretty quickly.”  Garnet leaned her head back on the couch and studied the ceiling.  “That leaves us with one potential Gem suspect for the lab break-in.”

“Peridot is the logical choice, and I had considered that option from the very start, of course,” Pearl said, ignoring Garnet and Amethyst’s dubious looks.  “But then that begs the question: why would she steal all that junk?  It doesn’t look like anything that would be of use in rebuilding her escape pod, and I’ve investigated it thoroughly, it’s a planetfall-trajectory only device.”

“Plus, she’d have to fight us to get her escape pod back, and she’s kind of a weenie even with the electro-digits.”  Amethyst stole Lapis’ mutilated pizza slice and ate it.  “Hey, maybe Peridot’s got lonely and she’s trying to build herself a _friend_ or something.  _Beep-borp, I am Robo-Rock, even I am too cool to be friends with Peridork…”_

“Is this interrogation over?” Lapis interrupted.  “Can I leave now?”

Garnet raised her head to stare at Lapis.  “This isn’t an interrogation.  People who are getting interrogated don’t get comfy beach chairs and pizza.”  She paused for a moment.  “But yeah, if you want, you can go.”

“Thank you.”  Lapis stood up stiffly.  “I was starting to get flashbacks to being the mirror, with all this picking and poking.  _Show us what happened in 046000 G.E., show us the construction of the M-66 Galaxy Warp,”_ she went on in a mocking parody of Pearl’s voice.  All three Crystal Gems glared at her.  She glared back.  “Also, pizza is disgusting.  I don’t know why you all said it was so great.  It stinks.”  She turned on her heel and left the Temple.

“Excuse _you,_ Miss Rude, _you_ smell like three-day-old water salami!”  Amethyst ran to the screen door to yell after her, and then turned back to the flushed, fuming Pearl when Lapis launched off the deck, wings spread wide.  “You don’t sound like that, P.  I mean, not _usually.”_

Pearl composed herself with a visible effort, then curled into a ball with her fists clenched and sank into Garnet’s shoulder.  “Just _what_ is her _damage? I_ didn’t put her in that mirror…”

The screen door banged open and Steven trotted in, followed by Greg and carrying a plastic plate.  “It’s shrimp cocktail time!  Who wants a shrimp cocktail?  All tail, no--” He looked around at the tight-lipped Crystal Gems.  “Guys?  Are you okay?  Where’d Lapis go?”

* * *

 

Greg helped Steven up onto the Temple roof and nodded to him.  “I’ll just set myself up down here with _AC/DC Monthly,_ Steven, yell if you need anything.”

Steven smiled down at Greg.  “I’ll be okay, Dad.”

“I know you will.  Just…humour your old man and be careful, okay?”  Greg unfolded Lapis’ abandoned beach chair and settled down, trying to give the appearance of a man who wasn’t thrumming head to toe with worry for his son.

Steven picked his way across the roof to Lapis’ perch, on the highest point where she could watch the sunset painting the sky and the ocean the same colours.  “Hey.  So, Garnet says you guys didn’t have a very good talk.”

Lapis gave a muffled grunt.

“She didn’t mean to make you scared, Lapis, none of them did…”

“Steven.  Stop.  _You_ can’t make this right.  This isn’t…”  Lapis inhaled hard.  “This isn’t your fault, or something _you_ need to make up for.  You had nothing to do with my…history…with the Crystal Gems.”

Steven sat with her quietly for a while, then said, “Do you still think they want to hurt you or put you back in the mirror or something?”

“I…I don’t know.  I don’t even know them, except as people I always thought were my enemies.  But what gets to me is…they _don’t understand_.  They don’t understand…any of it.  How could they?”  Lapis wiped her face with her forearm, and when she lowered it, her eyes were hard, her expression bitter.  “The Homeworld thinks I’m a traitor, and by now I’m sure they _know_ I lied.  Even if it’s not _my_ Homeworld, even if it’s nothing like the place I…it’s still the only place I’ve ever felt safe, Steven.  The only place I’ve ever been _happy_.  I just kept my head down and…everything was fine.  Just fine.  Now I can’t ever go back.  They’d execute me on the spot.”

Steven flinched.

“So now…after everything that’s happened, I’m still a prisoner.  Stuck here.  Your friends…they made a _choice_ to follow Rose Quartz, to rebel and kill their fellow Gems and stay on this tiny little insignificant planet.  I didn’t even want to fight.  I didn’t even want to come here in the first place.  But I never…get to choose.”

Silence dragged out between them as the sun sank deeper and the stars started to come out.  Eventually, Steven asked, “Do you hate Earth?”

Lapis turned to him and gave him a small, drawn smile.  “Are you going to be mad at me if I say yes?”

“No…but.  I mean.  Okay, this one time, they stopped making my favourite cookie…”  Steven looked at Lapis’ blank expression.  “Just work with me here.  It was _tragic._ ”

“What’s a cookie?”

“It’s the single most delicious thing that you will ever put in your mouth and I will introduce you to cookies.  Pearl actually makes really amazing chocolate peanut butter…”

“What do you do with it _after_ you put it in your mouth?”

Steven laughed.  “Uhhhh, let’s make that Human Biology 102, okay?  So there was this _amazing_ cookie ice cream sandwich called Cookie Cat, it was my favourite, and then,” he put a hand to his forehead and sighed, “they just stopped making them!  No more Cookie Cat.  They just make Lion Licks now.”

Lapis nodded slowly.  “O-kay.”

“I kind of hate Lion Licks.  Lion likes them, though.  Or maybe he just likes the freezer they’re in.”

Lapis stopped nodding.  “I see what you’re getting at.”

“You do?”

“Steven, I’m nine thousand years old.  I know what you’re going to say.”  Lapis blew a stray tuft of hair out of her face and gave him a cynical look.  “My “Cookie Cat” is gone forever, so I have to embrace “Lion Sticks”, or whatever.”

“ _No,_ I wasn’t going to say that!  Lapis, hear me out for a second.”  Steven gestured emphatically as the moon rose over the ocean.  “It is _okay_ to be sad that there’s no more Cookie Cat.  And it’s _also_ okay to not like Lion Licks.  Like, ever.  You don’t have to make yourself like Lion Licks because there’s no Cookie Cats.”

“Oh.”

“I mean…there’s still a lot of good things out there!  I didn’t lose hot dogs.  Or pizza.  Or fry bits, or donuts, or…I mean, there’s so much stuff that’s not Cookie Cat that’s also super yummy, and I mean that as a metaphor, too.”

“Steven, I don’t…have any of those things.  All I had was the Homeworld.  Now it’s gone forever, disappeared while I was stuck in a stupid mirror going crazy.  And now, in my head, I’m…”  Lapis restrained herself with visible effort, and added, “Besides, I don’t know how you can like pizza.  It’s mostly…fish and tasteless grain by-product.”

“Did Amethyst get you an anchovy pizza?”

“Yes…?”

Steven sighed.  “Yup, good old Amethyst.  Nobody else likes anchovy pizzas, so she orders them and gets to have all the leftovers to herself.  She hides pieces all over her room.”

“Gross.”

“But very strategic!”  Steven carefully reached for Lapis’ hand.  When she looked at him and turned her palm up, he took it.  “I know I can’t bring back the Homeworld you remember for you.  But maybe I can help you find your hot dog?”

There was a muffled snigger from the other side of the roof.  Steven poked his head over the gable and glared at the offender, who was lounging on the other side playing a handheld video game on silent mode.  “Amethyst!  We were having a private conversation!”

Lapis stood up and floated a few inches off the shingles, her wings spread aggressively wide and her expression stormy.  “Are you _spying_ on us?”

“Well,” Amethyst said, “yeah.  You’re an unpredictable ocean-swiping weirdo with a…kinda understandable mad-on for us who’s just spent like _months_ with the biggest jerk of a Gem I’ve ever met in her brain.  And you think I’m gonna let you hang out alone with Steven?  Of course I’m spying on you.  I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

Lapis pursed her lips and touched down carefully next to Steven.  “I…fine.  I guess.”

Amethyst rolled over on her stomach and stared up at Lapis.  “Also, quit trying to run us off by being a rude butthead.  I’ve been chilling with these Gems for thousands of years, I’ve been _training,_ I am, like, Champion Queen of the Rude Buttheads, nobody can surpass me and I’ve got a belt to prove it, and they _still_ put up with me.  You’re a total amateur.  And hey, there’s only five of us on this planet right now, counting Steven and _not_ counting Peridot and your ex head-pal.”

“That belt was for wrestling,” Steven pointed out, starting to smile.

“Yeah, same diff.  Anyway, Lapis Ladorkus, here’s a piece of info for you: Human Biology 101, if you encase a human’s head in water, the humans _die._ Permanently.  They need air.  Can’t teach a human to breathe underwater.”Amethyst watched Lapis’ face.  “Also, they like, break bits of themselves really easily.  Especially the old ones like Greg.”

_“Who are_ you _calling old?”_ Greg hollered up from the Temple deck. 

Amethyst snickered, then grew serious.  “You see what I’m getting at, right?”

“Yes,” Lapis said, and then frowned.  “No.  Kind of.”

Amethyst pocketed the handheld game.  “Meh, it’s a start.  Basically, don’t ever water-bubble our humans again or I’ll slug you so hard your head’ll come out the other end of your fancy sundress.  Hey, P’s trying to get me to finish washing the dishes with her.  Can you wash dishes with your brain?”

Lapis crossed her arms.  “I’m not changing jobs from ‘history lesson mirror’ to ‘dishwasher’.  You might have noticed I’m _really sick_ of being a household appliance.”

“Worth a shot.  You’re gonna have to do some chores if you’re hanging around the place anyway, might as well be something that comes naturally.”

“Who says I’m going to be hanging around with any of _you_ Gems?  And what’s so funny about hot dogs?” Lapis demanded.

“Yeah, Amethyst,” Steven said, crossing his arms and trying not to smile.  “What _is_ so funny about hot dogs?”

Amethyst grinned evilly.  “Now _that’s_ Human Biology 304, Steven.”

_“Amethyst?”_ Greg called.  _“What are you guys talking about up there?”_

“Nothing, Greg, just wieners,” Amethyst sang, and listened for the sound of Greg falling out of his deck chair and sputtering madly.  “He’ll chill in a minute, he used to be a touring musician.  He’s seen a _lot_ of stuff.”

“Amethyst,” Steven said, “the next pizza we have is gonna be pepperoni and pineapple, with extra cheese and no kalamata olives.”

“Aw, Steven.  Spoil my fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and bookmarks! This one is a real brain-eating monster, and I'll be trying to update every two to three days if my schedule allows it.  
> There are going to be a lot of canon-referential memes in this work, for which I am truly sorry.


	3. The Wrong Thing To Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis tries and fails to enjoy Connie and Steven's recreational reading recommendations. Meanwhile, Pearl closes in on Peridot's trail, Amethyst tries her hand at reaching out, and the matter of Lapis' imprisonment in the mirror comes to a head.

“So I don’t think she’s _completely_ whacked out and likely to turn evil and eat Steven in his sleep,” Amethyst said to Garnet over breakfast, “and if we leave the kids with her she’s probably not going to drown them or anything.”

Pearl put down the report she’d been reading and stared at Amethyst.

“I mean, if Connie’s got her sword and they’ve got Lion, the three of her can probably take her if she gets creepy or something.  She’s kind of a skinny little defensive sack of sad faces and rage-ons with the punching power of a wet toilet paper roll.”  Amethyst took a sip of coffee and made a face.  “Ew.  Not enough sugar _or_ milk.”

Steven pushed the milk across the table to Amethyst and yawned widely.  “That’s…great.  Uh.  Weren’t we gonna, try and do more CSI stuff about the Marie Cousteau lab thing today?”

Pearl straightened up.  “Oh!  Um, yes, Steven, you’re right.  Peridot was in there looking for _something,_ no doubt for nefarious purposes, so I was going to re-calibrate both the digital and analogue visuals, compile a full list of all known missing parts and items and the full array of their potential uses, study the method used for unlocking the—“

“Whoa, Pearl,” Greg said as he shouldered through the Temple door.  “Good morning, guys, it sounds like you’ve got a lot planned for today!”

Pearl waved an airy hand.  “Greg, it’s really nothing, I can handle it perfectly well on my own.  The rest of you would probably be better dealing with our…house guest.”  Her expression changed.  “Where _is_ she, anyway?”

“She slept on the roof,” Steven said, suppressing another yawn.  “I mean, sorta.  She said she doesn’t like to sleep.”

Pearl froze, looking at Steven, then standing up to look at Steven’s neatly made bed in the loft.  Her face became a mask of horror.  “You slept on the _roof?_ With _her?!”_

“Ye—e—es,” Steven yawned a third time and rubbed his eyes.  “I didn’t want Lapis to get lonely.  And she stopped me from rolling off…kept waking up though.”

“That actually doesn’t sound safe, buddy,” Greg said carefully.  “How about you don’t do that again and if Lapis gets lonely, the loft is nice and open and we can just crack a window for her and get her a sleeping bag?  How about that?”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Good thinking, Greg,” said Garnet, and went back to her newspaper.

Pearl was still making tiny “ngh ngh ngh” noises and vibrating in place.  Amethyst poked her and she exploded, “This is what happens when _you don’t let me check on Steven when he’s sleeping_ _Garnet_!”

“He did ask you not to,” Garnet said, not lowering the newspaper.

“But I—“

“Consent, Pearl.”

Pearl sagged, still twitching intermittently, and managed to compose herself with considerable difficulty.  “Okay… _okay._ I will just…go and…do all those things I said I would do, and Amethyst, Garnet, _don’t let her alone with Steven_ , okay?  She doesn’t…understand certain things, and she may be a wet toilet paper roll in hand-to-hand combat but _she is a hydromancer_.”

Amethyst pushed Pearl back into her seat.  “Uh, Pearl, I was pretty up-front with her about how sticking humans’ heads in water bubbles isn’t a-okay and that I’d rearrange her face if she pulled anything cute.”

“I am _very_ serious about this, Amethyst.”  Pearl shook her off, rose, and stormed out of the Temple, past Greg, who turned to follow her with a cry of “Hey, what’s that you said about analogue video?  I’m the vidmeister!”

Amethyst stirred her oatmeal and shoved it away.  “Ugh.  She’s gonna be like this as long as Lapis Loserface is around, isn’t she.”

“Maybe,” Garnet said.  “We’ll have to see.  We’re in tricky territory here.”

“She wasn’t this weird when Rose brought _me_ home.”

“That was a totally different situation.  You needed our help, and you were our friend and part of our team and we were definitely keeping you.  I think trying to “keep” Lapis with us is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.”

“She still needs our help, though,” Steven protested, sagging gently into his oatmeal.  Amethyst pulled him out and cleaned his face off with her shirt-tail.

“That’s another place where we’ll have to be careful.  We’ve got a history with Lapis Lazuli, or at least, our team does.  You don’t.”  Garnet folded up the newspaper and tossed it in the recycle basket.  “No pressure.”

Steven gave her the okay sign and slid muzzily off his chair.  “No prob.  Gonna just go…check on my Bob.  Yeah.”

A few minutes later, he was dressed and wandering out of the Temple.  Garnet watched him go, then looked critically at Lion, who had turned up sometime in the middle of the previous night and was lounging on the Temple floor.  “Go earn your keep in cardboard boxes and look after him.”

Lion made a disgruntled noise, rolled into a sunbeam for a while, and then finally got up and followed Steven anyway.

* * *

 

“Lapis?  Lapis Laaaaazu—lighthouse!”

Up high on the lighthouse walkway, Lapis started and looked down over the edge.  “Steven!  Hi.  I was just...”

“Hey Steven!”  Connie got up on the railing and waved down at him.  “Come on up!  There’s something we need your help with!”

Re-energized, Steven hurried to the lighthouse door.  “I’m on the case!”

Lion, about ten paces behind him, grunted and curled up on the lighthouse doorstep, ears pricked.

* * *

 

“…you need help with _reading_?”

“It’s not that I can’t read,” Lapis said, a little defensively.

“I found Lapis hiding—I mean, thinking, up here earlier this morning,” Connie said, “and I went home and brought back some books for her.  You know, in case she wanted to learn about essential Earth stuff.  I brought _A Laugh-line In Space, Lord of the Crowns,_ and a couple of other really good ones…”

Lapis held up Connie’s well-loved copy of _The Unfamiliar Familiar._   “Humans have the weirdest imaginations.  Even _Gems_ can’t do this kind of magic.  I mean, unless your Earth birds actually _have_ evolved to talk and do more useful things than steal food...”

Connie twiddled her fingers.  “Well…no.  But that’s not the problem we were having.”

“I don’t really understand what the attraction is.”  Lapis made as if to drop the book, then saw Connie’s horrified look and handed it back to her a bit more carefully.  “Spending time having to make things up in your head.  Pictures from words.  It feels…hollow.”

Connie inhaled deeply, the outraged breath of the devoted reader, then exhaled and made a silent _you see_ gesture at Steven behind Lapis’ back.  Then she cleared her throat.  “Okay.  So it’s not that books are difficult for you, you just don’t see the point.  I…can’t exactly understand that, but fair enough, books aren’t necessarily for everybody although _I swear_ if you gave _The Unfamiliar Familiar_ a chance you’d see it’s really relevant and important because it’s about a girl who’s imprisoned by an archaic, stifling system who bravely breaks free with the help of her best friend…”

“And I wasn’t a big fan of reading until Connie got me into it with some cool stuff, Lapis, so I know where you’re coming from!”  Steven’s eyes suddenly lit up.  “I have the _perfect_ solution!”

* * *

 

Lapis looked up from the stack of comic books and manga that Steven had hauled up to the top of the lighthouse.  “This is…art?  Human art?”

“Kind of,” Connie said.  “It’s mostly made for popular consumption and tends to pander to the lowest common denominator.”  She caught Steven’s eye.  “Which isn’t to say some of it isn’t _really great._ Oh.  Oh, no, Steven, did you give her _The Guardians_?”

“Yeah, I mean, Lars loaned me his copy except he said it was probably too grown-up for me, so I figured, nine thousand years is pretty grown up, right?  Did you read it, Connie?”

Connie nodded.  “In the comic book store in the last town I lived.  In…chapters.  I couldn’t finish it.  I mean, between what happens to Lucy Saturn and,” she shuddered, “and pretty much everything about Holtzman, it was just too…I don’t think it’ll give Lapis a very…accurate idea of what humans are really like.”  Lapis immediately dug into the pile for it, but Connie was faster, pulling it away and sitting on it, then sorting through the stack herself.  “Here _, The Revengers_ , it’s pretty good.  There’s also _Fruit Princess Mayumi_ —very compelling story—and _Ragnar the Thunder Queen_ …”

“She’s got the best catch phrase!  _Taste the wrath of my Morningstar of truth, evildoers!”_

Connie nodded enthusiastically to Steven.  “Also, they started a new run of _Miss Amazing_ and they had the character title pass on to a Bangladeshi-American girl, which is so cool, my mom waived her no-comics policy and waited outside the store to get me Issue #1 for my birthday…Lapis?”

Lapis was looking down at the comic in her hands, turning page after page in silence.  The two kids looked over her shoulder.

“Isn’t that…?”

“Yeah, _Energy Consequences #24,_ ” Steven said.  “The final issue!  The one where Commander Goatherd and his crew of loveable alien buddies save the universe from the Gatherers, but to do that they had to close the wormhole from the inside and now they’re…stuck in…the Gatherers’…universe…”  Steven trailed off, his expression growing horrified as he talked, and finally snatched the comic out of Lapis’ hands.  “Leeeeet’s try something different and not at all about that subject.”

“It’s okay, Steven,” Lapis said.  “I don’t think I’m going to be a big fan of these…comics, either.”  She closed the comic and stuffed it down at the bottom of the pile.  “Besides, the people in them don’t look like humans _or_ Gems.  They mostly look like giant inflated triangles.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have shown her the Rob Snowfield run of _Fruitbatman_ ,” Connie said dejectedly.

Lapis looked at Connie, then at Steven, then back at Connie.  For a moment, her expression changed, growing worried and a little guilty.  “Um…l-listen…Connie, I…”

“ _YO, LAPIS LUMP O’ SAD!”_

Lapis jumped, growled, and stood up.  “Is she going to _keep_ giving me annoying nicknames forever?”

“Probably not.”  Steven peered over the edge of the lighthouse walk.  “But I can ask her to cut it out.  Hey, Amethyst!”

“Steeeven, hey, how come you took all my comics?”

“I’ll bring them right back!  Amethyst?”

“Yup?”

“Can you call Lapis something less mean?”

“That _was_ me being less mean, Steven.”

“Okay, now dial it down even less.  Like, no mean at all.  Mean-free nicknames.  All the fun, none of the hurt feelings!”

Amethyst rolled her eyes.  “Okay, Steven, if you say so.  _YO, DOUBLE-L!”_

Lapis lifted her eyebrows.  Steven shrugged at her.  She made a face and leaned over the railing.  “Yes?”

“Little help would be nice.”

“You want me to wash your floors with my brain?” Lapis said icily.

“That’d be awesome, but no.  One of your creepy ex-girlfriends from the Homeworld is on the loose with a bunch of stolen human stuff and Pearl’s running herself crazy as usual.  Garnet wants all Gem hands on deck.  That includes Steven, and I guess you too.”

“I barely even _spoke_ to Peridot, she isn’t my girlfriend, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m _not_ a Crystal Gem.”

“Yeah, I _had_ noticed and nobody said you _had_ to be.  We’re a pretty exclusive club.  But you _do_ want to take down Peridot and Jasper, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Well, get your soggy butt down here and help me dig around in her escape pod!”

“I still can’t believe you haven’t captured Peridot yet when you’ve got her pod.”

“Oh, bite my purple bubble butt, _Bob_.  I wanna find out if there’s anything in there, you know, related to the Peri-shenanigans, before P cracks her Gem worrying and pushing herself too hard.”  Amethyst flushed.  “Not that I care, she’s just probably driving herself a little crazy over at that lab and needs _some_ chill.”

“O-kay,” Lapis said, and stepped off the balcony.  She hovered in mid-air for a moment, then looked back at Steven and Connie.  “You two should probably take the stairs down.”

“Uh…yeah,” said Connie carefully.  Once Lapis had drifted out of earshot, following Amethyst’s chatter, she turned to Steven and said quietly, “Does Lapis know that the escape pod is a one-shot device, or does she think she can get it space-worthy?  I mean…how much _does_ she miss her home planet?”

Steven looked at _Energy Consequences #24_ and put it back in the pile.  “It…kinda doesn’t matter?  She doesn’t understand most new Gem technology.  At all.  And Pearl said right in front of her that it can only make the trip to the nearest planet from the spaceship it’s on, not all the way to the Gem Homeworld.”  He bagged all the comics up.

“She really is stuck here, huh,” Connie said after a minute.

“Yeah, she is.  But don’t worry!  I’m…we’ll work something out!”

Connie took Steven’s hand quickly.  “Let me know what I can do to help, Steven.  I’m serious.  I might not be able to introduce her to the joy of reading but maybe I can do _something._ ”

“What you’re doing right now is great!  I mean, I understand if you don’t want to be jam buddies with Lapis…”  Steven trailed off when Connie didn’t respond right away.

“I’m…a little nervous of her,” Connie admitted finally.  “Still.  She’s not like the Crystal Gems at all.  She’s so unpredictable.  I mean…I thought we were both going to die when those bubbles...”  She sighed.  “Maybe it helps a little to know she’s scared, too.  Is that kind of cruel?”

“I don’t think so, I think it’s probably…kinda normal.”  Steven patted her hand.  “But you still came up here and brought her books, so that was pretty brave of you!”

“You think so?”  Connie wiped at the corners of her eyes.  “Thanks, Steven.”

* * *

 

Steven and Connie caught a bus to the lab, arriving just in time to find Pearl resting her head on the security console’s keyboard and humming monotonously.  Greg, who was under an elderly VHS terminal on a plumber’s cart, rolled back out and waved at them.  “Heyyy, Steven!  I always told you I was going to learn to skateboard, just needed to do it on my back, right?”

“I knew you were the raddest of all dads!  Poppin’ locks, wearing Crocs!  Except you’re really wearing flip-flops.”

“Yup, and we’ve got even more good news—whoops—gimme a minute, I gotta…” Greg scooted himself into the wall and worked his way upright again before stowing the cart.  “Pearl, I think I’ve managed to get all those VHS tapes corrected.”

“Thank you, Greg,” Pearl said, a bit distantly.  There were lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there when she left that morning.  “I’ve done…everything I can think of to counter whatever electrical disrupter Peridot used to fritz the digital media recorders, and I’ve just finished a full three-hour recalibration of every single system in the facility…”

“You really impressed those interns by brute-forcing all of their security backups,” Greg reassured her.  “Except for that one who was downloading all the unauthorized singing cat videos.  She wasn’t too happy with you.”

“Mm,” said Pearl.

Steven carefully patted Pearl’s hair as she leaned heavily against the console.  “So what do you need to do now?”

“Press the ‘Enter’ key and…hope that I did everything correctly.  If not, I’ll have to start all over again, and I’ll have just given Peridot even more lead time on us.”  Pearl looked at Steven, lifted her head, and pressed the button.

Every screen immediately booted and began running properly date-stamped footage.

Pearl leaped out of her seat with a whoop, picked up Connie and Steven, and whirled them around.  “It worked!  It worked!”  She set them down, started to hug Greg, then twitched back quickly, straightened, and rubbed her forearms.  “I mean, um, this is progress.  Yes.”  She sat down at the console in a dignified way and stared up at the screens, allowing herself a triumphant smirk.  “We’ve got you now, Peridot!”

Greg was beaming with pride as he scanned the screens himself, then he suddenly laughed.  “Uh, Pearl, c-can you pause on Camera 7?”

Pearl blinked, did so, and stared at it.  “That’s just Dr. Jeong’s office.  What is she doing in there?”

“I don’t know, maybe turn on the sound?”

Peridot’s voice came in over the speakers of the security office.  _“…device holds some kind of human tribal significance, or it’s philosophical in nature.  A third possibility: it can be repurposed, and its purpose is nefarious.”_ On the camera, she looked around Dr. Jeong’s office, lifted one of the metal balls on the Newton’s Cradle, and let it swing in to click against the line of identical metal balls hung from a frame.  Only the final ball on the end was affected.  She watched them click back and forth for a good five minutes, her eyes darting from moving ball to moving ball.  Then she cleared her throat and pulled up a finger-screen.  _“Let the acquisition record show, I am confiscating this device for the Special Post-Termination Anthropological Department, Item 640Q.  If they are uninterested, well…I can take it off their hands as a personal trophy of my conquest of this lousy primitive facility.”_

Greg was propped against the wall, laughing.  “She really _did_ take the clicky-thing!”

“You must admit, it’s rather hypnotic,” Pearl said, a shade defensively.  Then she turned back to the screens.  “Now, let’s see just where you were going, Peridot, and what you were after…”

Steven tugged on Pearl’s arm.  “Pearl, you look really tired.  When was the last time you took a break?”

“Steven, it’s very sweet of you, but I’m perfectly fine…”

“Peridot’s gonna wait.  Amethyst’s worried about you.  Come look at the whales and stuff while me and Dad and Connie get a snack.”

Pearl, briefly dumbstruck, allowed herself to be lead from her chair.  “Amethyst said she was worried about me?  Really?”

Connie and Steven exchanged a conspiratorial look behind her back.  “Pretty much word for word.”

Pearl flushed.  “Well…maybe I’ve been pushing it a little bit.  Alright, I’ll come and look at the ichthyoids with you three.  It’s always interesting seeing Earth evolution in action.”

* * *

 

By the time Steven and Connie had finished their snacks and torn themselves away from watching a passing swarm of tiger sharks, Pearl and Greg had downloaded all of the relevant footage of Peridot to a digital storage key and reassured Dr. Jeong that they would do the best they could to find her thief and get what they could of the lab’s supplies back.  The four of them piled into the van and headed back to the Temple, Pearl with her face pressed against the window, deep in thought.

“Greg,” she said after a while, “what you said a few days ago, about putting those security cameras in your car wash…”

“Oh, yeah, I remember.  You think Peridot might have been trying to steal parts to fix her escape pod?”

“It’s becoming a more and more plausible explanation for her behaviour.  She could also be planning to reconfigure it to be space-worthy.  Most of the technology she stole wouldn’t be of particular use with any of _our_ Gem tech, but I’ve had a few moments to look over the pod and…well.  Most of it is nothing I couldn’t operate or reconfigure on my own, but there’s some parts of it I just don’t _understand,_ and I don’t like that at all.”

“I get it,” Greg said gently.  “This kind of thing is your lifeblood!  I wouldn’t worry too much, you’ll figure it out eventually.  Just be patient with yourself.  Uh…that is to say, unless Peridot’s planning to raid the Temple and steal back the pod, in which case maybe we are on a deadline here.”

Pearl pulled a face.  “Raiding the Temple wouldn’t be her style.  She hasn’t got the firepower.”

“Yeah, and anyway,” Steven said from the back seat, “Garnet’s still at the Temple and Amethyst and Lapis Lazuli are checking out the escape pod right now!”

Pearl rounded on Steven, her face a mask of horror.  “Steven.  Lapis Lazuli is doing _what?”_

* * *

 

By the time Steven, Connie, and Greg caught up to Pearl in the Temple and followed her into Amethyst’s room, she was already in the middle of a furious argument with both Amethyst and Lapis.  Greg tried to steer the kids around and back outside, but Steven and Connie both refused to be moved.

“…just let her _fiddle around_ with it?  She spent weeks on that spaceship, she probably knows more about it than we do!”

“What, are you worried I’m going to run off with the technology that nobody bothered to show me how to use?”Lapis snapped at Pearl.  “I’m flattered the _Pearl_ thinks I’m good enough at this kind of thing to figure it out on my first go!  Aren’t you just _brilliant._ ”

“Can it, Lapis!  P, calm your freaking socks,”Amethyst hollered in Pearl’s face.  “You are _right_ up in my grill, and I had the situation 100% under control!”

“The last time somebody played with that pod, it sent out a planet-wide distress beacon!  Who _knows_ what could happen if she tampered with it, or you pushed the wrong button, or…you have to stop taking unnecessary risks like this, Amethyst!”

“Why are you _so obsessed_ with making sure I’ll behave myself?” Lapis ground out.

Pearl looked from Amethyst to Lapis, her expression growing openly hostile.  “I beg your pardon?”

“The other two at least act like they’ll tolerate me coming and going, but _you,_ you want to shove me right back in that _mirror_.”  Lapis stepped closer to Pearl, a dangerous light in her eyes.  “Is it because you want to control me?  Or do you just want to pretend that you didn’t spend _years_ pulling me out for your stupid history lessons…”

“Lapis,” Amethyst started to protest, “hey, back it up right now, Double-L.”

“…passing off every time I _cried for help_ as a _glitch?_ Are you honestly that _blind and stupid,_ or did you just want to keep pretending that your _precious_ Rose Quartz wouldn’t talk such a good game about _love_ and _freedom_ and then seal me away in the dark and leave me to go insane and…”

“How _dare_ you talk about Rose like that!?”  Pearl reached out and grabbed the front of Lapis’ top, pulling her so they were nose to nose, and Lapis’ expression changed to an oddly blank look just before she hauled off and slugged Pearl.

Or rather, slugged the space where Pearl’s head had been.  Pearl’s graceful backwards dodge and shift into a fighting stance were pre-empted by Amethyst’s tackling Lapis from behind and sitting on her to yell in her ear.  “And I thought _Pearl_ was the one with no chill, geez!You want to do this in front of Steven?Anyway, you both got little noodle arms, it’d be _so_ embarrassing.”

Pearl immediately dropped her stance, noticing Steven and Connie for the first time.  Shock and mortification passed over her face.

Lapis pushed herself off of the ground with some difficulty and flinched when she, too, caught sight of Greg and the kids.  Then she looked up, higher than the top of Greg’s head.

“We,” said Garnet from directly behind Greg, “are long overdue for a family meeting about this.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Greg said, his tone firm.  “I’ll go get out some lemonade.”

Connie was watching Lapis apprehensively.  “I’ll…help you, Mister Universe.”

“Thanks, Connie.  Hey, Pearl, can you show me where the ice cubes are?”

Pearl and Lapis were still glaring daggers at each other, but eventually Pearl broke the stare, crossing her arms over her chest.  “I’ll, I’ll be right with you, Greg.”  She shared an unreadable look with Amethyst, and then left the room.

“I’m not your family,” Lapis said shortly.  “Whatever that is.”

“Family is a human conception of biologically related individuals grouped into a single unit, but in our case it’s _all_ of us Crystal Gems.  You just made Steven cry in our house,” Garnet said.  “That makes this a family issue.  We’re getting this sorted.  _Right_ now.”

Lapis went stone still, biting her lip, and looked away from Steven’s tearful face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left kudos and commented. Feedback is always welcome, and also my lifeblood.
> 
> (Most readers will be able to recognize the SU versions of popular our-'verse books and comics, but for those interested, Connie's and Steven's recommendations in order: A Wrinkle In Time, Lord of the Rings, Watchmen (all I can say is, Lars is in THAT kind of phase and probably thought he was doing Steven a solid. No, Lars.), The Avengers, Female Thor, the Kamala Khan run of Miss Marvel, and a Mass Effect comic. Fruit Princess Mayumi has no one-to-one equivalent, but I like to think it's something like an amalgam of Fruits Baskets, Sailor Moon, and Shoujo Kakumei Utena; Connie got into it for the subversive elements (and the Power of Friendship themes, when she was very lonely) and Steven got into it because everybody has stone cold swag outfits that are 90% frills and also swords.)


	4. Mirror Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis and Garnet hash out the story behind Lapis' imprisonment in the mirror, and it turns out Garnet has a few surprises in store for Steven. Amethyst makes a discovery in Peridot's escape pod that bodes ill for the Crystal Gems.

“I can tell you pretty categorically, Lapis Lazuli, that Rose Quartz did not put you in that mirror.”

“Prove it,” Lapis said stiffly.  A moment later, she added, “Thank you…Greg?  Or do you prefer Dad?”

“Greg’s fine.”  Greg handed her a glass of lemonade, and Lapis cupped it in her hands, making no move to drink it.

Steven and Pearl assembled the final chairs in a rough circle of couch cushions, beach chairs, and fold-out kitchen chairs around the raised center of the Burning Room.  Steven and Connie were sharing Lion as a couch and staring around in awe, with Amethyst using Lion’s butt as a headrest while she sat on a double-cushion pile and slurped lemonade through a straw.  Pearl sat down, looking distinctly uncomfortable; she and Garnet had argued, _sotto voce,_ about the location of this particular family meeting, only ceding when Garnet put her foot down.

Garnet gestured around.  “These are the Gems we’ve collected since…recently.   Some of them were corrupted into monsters.  Some of them were trying to kill us.  The two groups don’t perfectly overlap.”

Connie raised her eyebrows at Steven, who shrugged and nodded sadly.  She looked up at all the bubbled gems floating above them.  “There’s a _lot_ of them.”

“So we bubble them after we defeat them.  It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best we’ve had, even for Rose Quartz.  Bubbling prevents the Gem from regenerating, but also induces an unconscious, painless stasis, preserving the Gem perfectly from the point the bubble takes effect…”

“I _know_ how bubbling works,” Lapis interrupted, gripping the glass tightly.  For a moment, her hard expression wavered, and she looked at Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst in confusion.  “You _all…_ can bubble Gems?”

“So can Steven,” Garnet said.

“I thought it was a technique that only high-level Gems knew, to protect the most important…the very highest,” Lapis said.

“Yes.  It was.”For a moment, Garnet’s lip curled, and then she became impassive again.  “Rose taught it to all of us, and made sure we had it down to an art.  That way, if someone fell in battle, and she couldn’t get to them in time…”  Garnet spread her arms.  “It was a way to protect our friends.  And, when we could, preserve our enemies.”

“This is new territory to me, too,” Greg said to Lapis from his seat next to her.  “Rose gave me a pretty _general_ overview on all the Crystal Gems who weren’t, you know, you guys.”  He looked down into his own glass glumly.  “I think it kind of hurt her, talking about them.”

“Pearl, you remember Hematite?”

“Oh!  _Yes._ What an uncouth, sneaky…”  Pearl wound down suddenly.  “I suppose that’s not fair.  We didn’t get along—not at all—but she was smashed to splinters saving Rose and Blue Agate from a Diamond attack.”

“She started out as an assassin trained by the Homeworld,” Garnet explained to Lapis.  “Her last target was Rose.”

Steven jerked upright, causing Lion to grunt and roll over.  _“Really?_ My mom took down an assassin?”

“She never mentioned that to me,” Greg said, startled.  “She just said Hematite was a good friend!”

“I’m sure she did.  Hematite _was_ a good friend, _after_ Rose took her down in a fight, and then gave her a good talking-to.  Rose…wanted to give everybody a chance.  She couldn’t.  It was down to a numbers game, and there were just too many of them and too few of us, but if she could save someone, convert them to the cause, or at least get them to put down their weapon and walk away…”  Garnet shook her head.  “She had room in her heart for everyone.  The angry, the deceitful.”  For a moment, she looked at Pearl.  “The scared and alone.”

“That can’t be true,” Lapis said, a note of growing uncertainty in her voice.  “The second wave…nobody came back alive from battles with your rebellion.  They said you were ruthless, that you slaughtered every Homeworld Gem and took no prisoners.”

“We didn’t slaughter anybody,” Garnet said.  “We fought back.  It was a mistake for the Homeworld to have sent Blue Diamond after us, after White Diamond failed to suppress us and re-take the planet.”  She looked intently on Lapis.  “Blue Diamond _really_ believed that all her armies needed to be willing to die for her cause.  Lots of Crystal Gems were willing to die for Rose.  Blue Diamond respected that mindset, but Yellow Diamond didn’t think the same way, and she pulled her forces once the tide started to turn.”  She lowered her glasses and raised an eyebrow at Lapis Lazuli.  “Do you remember that?”

“I…I don’t know.  The second wave…I was brought in for the second wave.  Every Gem sworn to Blue Diamond, even the workers and artisans, were compelled to take the field, after Rose Quartz defeated the first wave of her warriors.”

“You weren’t there when she killed or did…other things to every one of her officers who managed to come back alive from skirmishes with us.  I’m certain that never made it into the Homeworld’s propaganda.”

Suddenly gone mute, Lapis shook her head.  Amethyst was sitting up straight, straw still in her open mouth, lemonade apparently forgotten.

“We only saw it a couple of times, but it was enough to make things personal, for Rose.  She got _really_ angry.  Especially during the second wave.  So many Gems who couldn’t _fight,_ who had no business being on the field and still threw themselves into battle because they were afraid not to…”

“I tried,” Lapis whispered.  “I mean, I’d been here before.  I didn’t like it, but my patron made me go.  There was _so much_ water.  I was…I could have been a powerful weapon.  I could have ended the war, even, if I’d been strong enough.”

“Who told you that?” Garnet asked quietly.

Lapis went silent.

“Alright.  It wasn’t your choice and your patron made you fight.  I understand.  So you tried, and…?”

“I don’t remember,” Lapis said, barely audible now, bent over her glass.  “I just remember there was this…light, this wave of yellow light…”

“Probably Topaz,” Garnet agreed.  “And then?”

“I…woke up.  Except I didn’t.  I was looking out at nothing.  That was…that was the mirror.”  Lapis fell silent again.

Pearl said, into the awkward silence, “You know, _we_ assumed the only reason the Homeworld would put a living, intact Gem into an inanimate object as a power source is…”

“Yes,” Lapis hissed, “I _know,_ that’s what you do to _criminals._ I thought you’d imprisoned me like a criminal.”

“Rose wouldn’t have permitted it!  And I mean, when we found you in that junk pile at the Galaxy Warp, it was in…what is it in Earth Common Era, the Gregorian solar calendar…”  Pearl counted to herself for a moment, then nodded decisively.  “48 E.C.E.  So, about four thousand years after the battle.”  She caught Connie and Steven’s puzzled stares, and clarified, “Most Gems imprisoned that way don’t retain any sense of sanity or self past the first millennium.  They sort of…meld with the device they’re powering.  Almost like an involuntary fusion.  Removing them just kills the device _and_ the Gem.”

“Lucky me,” Lapis said.  “I’m used to spending a lot of time alone with my thoughts.”

Pearl looked at her, worry and guilt visible on her face.  “We assumed you must have done…well, something appalling, to be installed and then abandoned completely in such an old device.  We thought it pre-dated the wars.”

“I think she failed to kill us, or to fight hard enough,” Garnet said, “and that was appalling enough for Blue Diamond.”

“This is getting intense,” Amethyst whispered to Steven.

“Why…why would my own commander do that,” Lapis said, but her stare was going empty-eyed and glassy.  “I…unless…unless…”  She stood up.  The lemonade glass shattered at her feet, and her hair was shadowing her eyes.  “You were weak,” she breathed, as if to herself.  Her teeth drew back from her lips.  “You _ran._ You ran, and left them to die, all the ones you could have protected _._ Because you were a _coward_ …”

“Lapis,” Steven said, and she shook her head and looked up.

“I…I didn’t remember…but I did.  I did run…I…all those screaming _humans,_ and you all looked…I didn’t _want_ to fight…”

“Nobody should have to fight who doesn’t want to, or can’t,” Garnet said, straightening up in her chair. 

After a minute, Pearl said, in a very small voice, “I noticed you glitching.”

“I know,” Lapis said distantly.  “You got nervous and shut me down every time I tried to speak to you, the way the mirror would let me.”

“I thought…”  Pearl looked quickly at Steven.  “I was always taught that embedded Gems had done something truly evil.”

“Breaking the rules would have been ‘evil’ enough for the Homeworld authorities,” Garnet said.

“They used to threaten us with embedding at the crèche,” Pearl muttered, half to herself.  “If we were disobedient, or did things out of…”  She caught Lapis staring and flinched.  “I just didn’t want to _think_ about it!  I needed something to teach Amethyst about the beauty of our history, all the accomplishments of Gemkind that she could be proud to be a part of, but then sometimes you…threw my words back in my face.”

“I didn’t know if you were _Rose’s_ Pearl,” Lapis muttered.  “The third or fourth time you ignored me or shut me off, I figured it out.”

“It wasn’t…I never told Rose about it.  I was…” Pearl looked away.  “It was like my worst nightmare, realizing there was still someone _conscious_ in there.”

“I quit trying after that.”

“I was relieved,” Pearl whispered.  “I thought it meant you’d gone dormant.  That you’d finally just melded with the object and were, um, at peace.”

“Yes,” Lapis said.  _“Peace.”_

Amethyst raised a hand slowly.  “Uh, am I the only one who’s _really_ creeped out by this or is anybody else with me right now?”  Greg, Connie, and Steven all raised their hands, one by one, their mouths open.  Amethyst abandoned the hind end of Lion to come over to Pearl.  “P, how come you and G-Squad never told me about this stuff?”

Pearl hung her head.

“…oh.”

“We may have rebelled against the Homeworld,” Garnet said, “but we still carried a lot of its attitude with us, however subconsciously.  Lapis, even Rose Quartz didn’t think you’d survived with your mind intact, and even she wouldn’t have thought you could have survived being separated from the mirror.”

“I should have told Rose,” Pearl said softly.  “If she’d known…”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it too much,” Lapis said coolly.  “It was only another couple of thousand years out of a six thousand year sentence.  Hardly a drop in the bucket.”  She watched Pearl closely, her mouth turning up slightly when the other Gem winced.

“We were wrong,” Garnet said.  “We’ve been wrong about a lot of things.  We thought we’d gotten the hang of this—of being _more_ than what the Homeworld forced us to be—but we’ve still got a long way to go.”  She looked at Steven and Connie, then at Greg.  “Look how far we’ve come in just the last year.  But we shouldn’t have assumed anything.  We should have considered if you—if anyone—deserved that kind of punishment, without at least a chance to be saved.  Now we’ve got someone who makes us think _outside_ the bubble.”  She gestured at Steven, then to Greg and Connie.

Lapis’ face softened very slightly, and Pearl looked a little less miserable.  Amethyst got Pearl in a hug that almost pulled her out of her chair, and then said to Garnet, “Wow, Homeworld _sucked.”_

“Preach,” Garnet said.  “And it sounds like it sucks even worse now.”

Lapis nodded slowly.  “I still don’t know…I mean.  I spent thousands of years thinking it had to be you that did this to me in the first place.”

“We did keep you prisoner by thoughtlessness.  But…let me tell you something, and this is for Steven as much as for you.”  Garnet waited until she had Lapis and Steven’s full attention.  “You both know I’m a fusion.  Ruby was loyal to Rose from the beginning.”

“Yeah, yeah, and then she recruited Sapphire to the cause,” Amethyst said in a sing-song tone, “geez, Garnet, we’ve heard _this_ one a hundred times!  _New_ story time, pretty please.”

“This is the _real_ story, Amethyst,” said Garnet, and Amethyst immediately shut her mouth.  “Sapphire didn’t come on board because she believed in Rose Quartz, although she did later, or because she fell in love with Ruby, although she did that a lot faster.  She came as a spy for White Diamond.”

Amethyst’s jaw sagged, as did Steven’s.  Connie breathed out a low whistle.  “That is _dramatic.”_

“It was pretty interesting.  Sapphire held her cover for a couple of decades—this was back when the Diamond Authority was treating Rose Quartz’s movement like a temper tantrum instead of a real threat—and then she saw the writing on the wall.  Well, she saw the future.”

“She saw Rose would win?” Amethyst demanded.  “That’s _cheating!”_

Garnet chuckled.  “I can’t see _that_ far into the future, Amethyst.  Let’s just say, Sapphire looked at the consequences of the Homeworld’s actions…and then looked at the consequences of Rose’s.  And she changed sides.  Became a double agent for a while.  She and Ruby had a _lot_ of fights about that.  Lots of crying.  Rose had to mediate and she cried a lot too.  Your mother was a terrible crier, when she was younger,” she added to Steven.  “Not just for healing people.  So was Ruby.  I— _she_ was very upset about Sapphire putting herself in danger, even more than she was about Sapphire lying to her all that time.  But I’ve been out here,” Garnet said to Lapis, “and you’ve been in that mirror.  I think we were dealt with very differently, by two very different people.”

Lapis looked down at the shattered remains of her glass.  “So…what now?”

“Well.  You’ve got a Quartz-Universe in your corner.  That makes you luckier than most of the Gems who’ve ever lived.  And nobody’s going to put you back in anything,” Garnet said, after sharing a glance with Pearl.

Amethyst, who’d stopped looking at Garnet like she’d betrayed her, patted Pearl’s shoulders.  “And it may look like she’s super-controlling, but once you spend enough time with P-dawg here, you find out she’s like that with _everyone.”_

“Thank you _so_ much for the vote of confidence, Amethyst,” Pearl said, a little tiredly, even as she leaned into Amethyst’s shoulder.

“I think it actually kinda means she likes you,” Amethyst added, which got her an outraged squawk and Pearl almost toppling out of her chair.  “Ooooh, hit a little close to home, Pearl?”

“Don’t _say_ things like that!” Pearl yelped, “you will give people _completely_ the wrong idea, no, I don’t like her, not _that_ way!” 

“ _Um,”_ said Amethyst, helping prop Pearl up in her chair again.  “Okay, is the family meeting over, so you guys can actually care about what me and Double-L found in Peridot’s escape pod?”

* * *

 

“Basically, me and the water monster here were messing around with the pod, pushing buttons and all that…”

“Which is exactly what I warned you about not doing,” Pearl put in.

“And, guess what, Amethyst’s way is the _best_ way and you should totally always listen to Amethyst.”  Amethyst leaned dramatically against the pod’s side, waited for her audience to assemble properly after picking their way through her messy room, and then slid her hand a few inches down the pod’s smooth surface and bopped an unadorned section of green curved hull.  “Oops.”

Nothing happened.

Amethyst’s expression changed and she banged her fist on the side of the pod.  _“I said OOPS!”_

“You’re pressing the wrong side,” Lapis pointed out, deadpan.

Muttering and fuming as Pearl hid a smile, Amethyst marched around the other side, barked _“Oops,”_ once more, out of frustration more than anything, and kicked the side.

The pilot compartment hissed loudly and folded forward, revealing a larger, secondary pod compartment.

Amethyst marched back around the pod and gestured dramatically to their find.  “Ta-dah.”

“Nice,” said Garnet.  “Secondary emergency weapons compartment.”

“And a _lot_ of empty space,” Pearl said, her smile fading.  “I don’t…like that.  From what I’ve seen of this new Gem tech, it’s designed to be efficient.”

“And dangerous,” Lapis pointed out.  “You definitely succeeded in convincing the Homeworld that rogue Gems could be a threat.”  She glanced up at Garnet.  “Your weapons are traditional concussive or barrage, like they were when I was free; the modern weapons Homeworld is equipping their personnel with look like they’re meant specifically to disable or destroy other Gems as fast as possible.  Even older Gems use them.  You saw that with…Jasper.  They don’t care to take any chances.”

“Well, the Diamonds always assumed no threat in the galaxy could be as powerful as Gemkind,” Garnet allowed.  “I guess that must apply to internal politics too, now that Yellow Diamond’s in charge.”

Connie was examining the new compartment from all sides.  “If they still think that after meeting humans, they’re in for a rude awakening.  These humans, anyway,” she added defiantly when the Gems stared at her.

Lapis blinked.  “You’d, uh.  Connie, you wouldn’t be able to stand up to a Gem warrior if Steven weren’t…”

“Actually, while you were in the ocean,” Steven interrupted, “Pearl trained Connie how to swordfight, and now she’s training both of us.  So we’re getting pretty good at this!”

“Steven has his mother’s natural talent and determination,” Pearl said to Lapis, a little haughtily, “and Connie is a very dedicated and skillful pupil in the art of the blade.”

Lapis eyed Pearl curiously.  “You decided to teach a human how to fight?  Isn’t that a little risky?”

Pearl’s cheeks turned blue.  “ _You_ threw a _van_ with _Greg_ in it.  You have _no_ room to talk to me about humans and safety.”

Connie, who was headfirst into the compartment by now, said, “Hey, Steven, does this look like a space for something with legs to you?”

Steven joined her immediately, poking his head in after her.  “It kinda does, yeah!  Like the deployment pod for that comet lander we saw on TV.”

Garnet was there immediately, gently and ceremoniously lifting the kids up and putting them down so she and Pearl could stick their heads in and look for themselves.  Eventually, she said, her voice hollow, “Yeah that does look like something with legs.  Like a four-point tower transmitter.”

Pearl scrambled out of the compartment, looking harried.  “Would those still be in use as standard equipment?”

Garnet rose and shrugged.  Her hair puffed out into its normal shape after being compressed by the narrow space.  “It was a pretty advanced design, and solid.  There’d be no reason to abandon it.”  She rubbed her chin as the other three Gems came to peer into the empty compartment as well.  “Bit large for a standard tower transmitter, though.”

“Even so,” Pearl said, “this could be serious trouble.  Peridot could summon an entire invasion fleet with one of those.  She wouldn’t have to even contact the Homeworld for prior authorization.  Thank goodness you two found it,” she said to Lapis and Amethyst, and then realized who she was talking to and sputtered a bit as Amethyst preened.

“Maybe it’s a robot?” Greg asked tentatively, coming up to put a reassuring hand on Steven’s shoulder.

“I hope so, Greg,” Pearl said.  “A Gem invasion fleet…that would be a disaster.  They really _would_ annihilate the Earth.”  She sighed.  “But I’m sure we can handle a simple robot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains rampant speculation on both the way Gem society is structured and who stuck Lapis in the mirror and why. Feel free to make your own! I've always thought a militaristic society that placed a high premium on obedience would only use someone like Lapis in a war if they were losing and thought her power would tip the balance in their favour, and wouldn't be pleased at all if she failed to perform up to spec. But since Garnet is talking about this in front of Steven and Connie, she's still trying to soften a lot of very ugly truths about How Things Were for their tender ears without outright lying to them.
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, deeply appreciated!


	5. Programmed for Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternate chapter title: peridot put that thing right back where you found it or so help me
> 
> Steven introduces Lapis to Lars, Lars introduces his own forehead to the wall, Sadie and Amethyst introduce Lapis to donuts (and digestion), and Peridot introduces severe complications to the plot.
> 
> (Heads up for this chapter: while there is no overt foul language, Amethyst has a PhD in being phenomenally inappropriate in the presence of oblivious grade-schoolers.)

One warp to the Kindergarten later, and with no sign of Peridot no matter where they searched, the Crystal Gems were getting extremely antsy.  Out of courtesy to Garnet’s feelings, Steven waved the other three away and went down to the control room where Peridot had restarted the cluster fusion experiments.  It was dark and empty, just the way they’d left it.  Steven suppressed a shiver, and backed his way up the ladder without taking his eyes off the broken carbon tubes.

They warped back to the Temple, where Connie was doing some kind of odd shuffle-dance with Lapis, both of them empty-handed and under Lion’s watchful eye.  Connie made a dramatic swing and Lapis dodged it awkwardly, as if Connie had swung a sword at her.  She straightened up again and rubbed her arm.  “I’m still not sure what the point of this is.”

Connie straightened up and raised a finger.  “The most important thing I learned from Pearl was to keep your eye on your enemy and pay attention to their movements.  Once you get distracted, or turn your back and try to run, you’ve given them an opening.”  Lapis flinched, and Connie’s expression softened.  “Maybe we could do this a different way.  I could throw tennis balls and you could dodge them!”

“That’s a great idea, Connie,” Steven said, hopping down from the warp pad.

Connie looked up at the dusty, dejected Gems, and then down at Steven, who was trying to force a smile.  “No luck, huh?”

“She’s definitely not in the Kindergarten,” Garnet agreed.  “That narrows our search down to pretty much anywhere in the world.”

“She’s probably not gonna leave Beach City turf,” Amethyst offered.  “I mean, all her precious _stuff_ is here.”

“And there aren’t really any other human settlements around here within walking distance for her to steal from,” Pearl said, “so we can probably afford to narrow our search to Beach City’s surroundings and the areas accessible by warp.  Steven?”

There was a tiny growl from the equatorial Steven regions.  He looked up at the Gems hopefully.  “I could really go for a donut break.”

Amethyst sighed.  “Yeah, me too, buddy.  You in, Connie?”

“Sure!”

“Well, Garnet and I will keep looking,” Pearl said.  “Bring Lapis with you, it might be beneficial for her to experience human culture up close.  Try to talk to them as little as possible,” she added to Lapis out of the corner of her mouth.  “They can be skittish.  Do _not_ bring up the extraterrestrial issue.”

Connie and Steven looked at each other, then at Lapis, who blinked at their big, shining eyes.  “What’s a donut break?”

* * *

 

Lars was manning the counter with his usual attentive customer service (that was, with his headphones in and sneak-reading an alternative ‘zine under the cash register) when he heard the traditional Song of the Approaching Steven.

_“Do-nuts…at the Big Do-nut…_ come on, Lapis, you gotta sing along!”

Lars rolled his eyes and pulled out his headphones as Steven and two of his buddies, the cute purple troll girl and the extremely tiny and nerdy Maheswaran kid, came prancing in for their near-daily donut top-up.  He tried for removed nonchalance, but that was getting harder and harder for him to pull off these days.  When had he stopped finding Steven and his weird friends _quite_ so annoying?  “Yo, Steven.  What’s the haa-ahhhps,” he trailed off, as a blue goddess in a two-piece sundress floated through the door of the shop.  He straightened right up, sweating, and redoubled his efforts at being cutting-edge without seeming in any way uninterested or uninteresting.  Unfortunately, that turned into him standing stiff as a board and blurting out “Hi welcome to the Big Donut what can I get for you today” like a robot as his voice actually _cracked._

Lars was going to die, right there, and wither and crumble to dust behind the counter like that one dude in that movie who picked the wrong grail.

“Hey Lars,” Steven said, happy and carefree as usual, the little cuss.  “Can we have a Big Donut Dozen with, uh, let’s see, two lemons, a Vermont Cream…”

“Do you still have the rainbow sprinkle coconut cream ones?” Connie asked.  “I’d like two of those, please.”

“Yeah, sure.”  He glanced up at Amethyst.  “Lemme guess, you want…”

“Bacon,” Amethyst said from the table she’d appropriated.  The blue beach goddess just sat there, looking around in total silence.

Lars sighed loudly.  “You know, we just sell _donuts_ here.”  After the Caprese salad incident, which Lars _did not want to talk about,_ he and Sadie had had a discussion about customers who think it’s funny to give people impossible orders and how to deal with them, even if that customer was Buck Dewey.  Lars had taken that one to heart.

“Yeah, but you guys have bacon donuts.”

“We have five _kinds_ of bacon donuts.  Maple bacon, strawberry bacon, ham bacon…”

Amethyst held up an imperious hand.  “Gimme two of each.”  For the first time, she seemed to notice that beauty and grace incarnate was sitting right next to her, and she elbowed the goddess of all beach babes in the ribs.  “Oh, yeah, this is Lapis Lazuli.  Lapis, this is Lars, you want donuts, he’ll hook you up.”

Lars cleared his throat and tried for suave.  “I do a lot of other stuff _besides_ donuts…”

“Yeah, he plays video games and watches horror movies and he likes shirts with cute creepy animals on them and one of these days he’s gonna get a tattoo of a tarantula, probably, if his mom and dad let him,” said Steven Universe, the best-meaning professional life-ruiner in Beach City. 

The goddess was staring at him, and not in the good, can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you way.  Lars resisted the urge to run to the bathroom and check if there was anything stuck in his teeth.  “Uh…so, is there anything you’d like, Miss…Lazuli?”

“What are those things in your ears?  Are they some kind of mutation?”

As Lars choked and sputtered protests, Amethyst slapped Lapis Lazuli’s shoulder.  “Hey, don’t be a dink.  Humans self-mutilate as a hobby.  Especially the pubescent ones.  Sometimes it’s cultural, sometimes it’s just to prove their cred as badasses.”

“It looks really weird,” said Lapis, as Lars’ façade of suaveness caved in like a crappy rotten two-year-old gingerbread house.

“They’re gauges,” said Sadie, coming out of the back room with a box in her hands, and Lars had _almost never_ been so grateful to see her.  The thought gave him some pause.  Sadie set her box down and nudged Lars further down the counter.  “Hey, Steven.  New friend?”

“Lapis Lazuli, Sadie.  Sadie, Lapis Lazuli.”  Steven coughed.  “She’s from out of town.”

“Oh.  How…far out of town, exactly?”

“Uh…pretty far?”

“Um.  Okay,” Sadie said, looking from Amethyst to Lapis and then back again, evidently connecting some mental dots.  After a moment, she said, very carefully, “Welcome to the Big Donut, Miss Lazuli.  What can I get you?”

“I…um.  Is this one of those food places where you get those shrimp tail things?”

Amethyst elbowed Lapis Lazuli in the ribs.  “She’s never eaten anything before, Sadie.  Well, she licked an anchovy one time, but you guys are gonna pop her cherry Danish!  Be gentle.”

Thankfully, this statement went right over Steven and Connie’s heads, although Lapis looked blank and Sadie had a sudden coughing fit.  Lars slid behind the counter and put his head in his hands.  Steven Universe and his weird sister-moms seemed to periodically have the same effect on his life as a stick of dynamite in a goldfish bowl.

As soon as Sadie recovered, she folded her hands on the counter, all professionally.  “Right.  Okay, I’m going to recommend the special-edition French chocolate croissonut.  It’s to die for…not literally,” she added quickly.  “Refined, buttery, melts in your mouth…”  She sighed dreamily.  “It’s kind of like Paris for your taste buds.”  She collected herself a moment later.  “And it comes with a free coffee, so, uh, you can try that and see how you like it?”

“…thank you?” Lapis said, obviously completely confused.  “Why are you being so nice?”

“Um…we get paid for it, honestly,” Sadie said, and nudged Lars in the ribs when he gave a loud snort-cough that sounded suspiciously like _not nearly enough_.  “But also, you’re new in town, we want to make a good impression, and you haven’t, um, blown anything up yet that we know of, which I honestly really appreciate in a repeat customer.”  She smiled weakly.  “That’ll be $16.95 for everyone, please.”

“Can you stick it on our tab?” Amethyst asked.

Sadie made a dubious face at Amethyst.  “Okay, but listen, when you clear it next time, you have to pay with cash, not ancient pirate treasure.  The whole “coins from the Hispaniola” thing _really_ freaked my boss out.”  Sadie hassled Lars into helping her assemble everyone’s order and passed it across the counter.  Lapis rose and picked it up carefully.  “Thank you for patronizing the Big Donut, enjoy your day.”

Lapis gave her a befuddled look, then went and sat down, just as Amethyst said, “OOH, hey, do you still have a giant-sized Taiwanese coffee?  I want one of those!”

Lars made a frustrated sound through his teeth and straightened up.  “I’ll get it!  Geez.  Ten minutes to closing and they always want the hard stuff…”

“I’ll do it, Lars,” Sadie began.

“No, it’s…it’s okay, I’ve got this.”  Lars started to make a bid for freedom in the back room where they kept the condensed milk, or at least someplace where he could bang his head against the wall and mourn his stupidity and failed excuse for an interesting and diverse social life in private.

Sadie caught him just before he made it into the break room, tugged him down gently, and whispered, “Does she look…familiar to you?”

“Uh?  I think I’d _remember_ somebody who looked that good…”

“Take away the pupils and imagine her as a holographic projection.”

Lars’ memory suddenly jerked back to those near-disastrous two days at the beginning of summer.  “Oh, no, no _way_.  No _way!”_

“Yup way.”

“But she’s…aw, never mind.  I guess I’d better make that _good_ coffee.  Darn Steven and his darn magic ladies…”

“Enh, we’ll get used to it.”  Sadie patted his shoulder, and he managed a little smile for her before beating a retreat.

* * *

 

Amethyst watched him go, then looked at Sadie.  “How come Lars still works here when he’s such a…”  She paused and glanced at Connie and Steven, who were digging into the Big Donut Dozen like small, adorable, ravenous hounds, and then she lowered her voice.  “You know, a butthole surfer.”

Sadie pinched the bridge of her nose.  “We’re kinda hard up for local labour.”  She noticed Amethyst’s stare and chuckled awkwardly.  “And he’s _trying._ I mean, he’s getting better.  He actually volunteered to do something kind of hard.  That coffee’s a little…labour-intensive.”

“So’s saving the world,” Amethyst said, “but hey, points.  He’s a little less of a giant walking butt these days.  Good for you.”

“That’s not on me, necessarily…” Sadie trailed off and peered carefully over the counter.  “Listen, are you the same Lapis Lazuli who…?”

“Stole the ocean,” Lapis said flatly.  “Yes.  I’m hearing a lot of that.  I didn’t realize you were, um, using it at the time.”

“Well, thank you for actually purchasing your coffee instead of magic-ing it out of the pot.  And, um, I hope you enjoy your, uh, stay here.”

“…yeah,” Lapis muttered, looking away.

“It’s okay, Sadie,” Steven said quickly at Sadie’s dismayed look.  “Sadie just means your stay in Beach City,” he said to Lapis, who nodded and sniffed her croissonut with the air of an explorer trying to figure out if the root they were holding was poisonous.

Lars came out, carrying a clear cup with small black spheres visible at the bottom of it, and dropped it on the table in front of Amethyst.  “Here’s your coffee have a nice evening.”  After a second of fidgeting, he fled.

Lapis, who’d been sipping dubiously at her own cup, sniffed Amethyst’s.  “That…smells sort of…nice?”

Amethyst smirked and shoved it in her direction.  “I _thought_ so.  Taste the glory of concentrated sugar, tapioca, and caffeine.”  She turned to the donut box and twitched.  “Hey!  Which one of you guys ate my bacon-ham donut?”

Steven raised a guilty hand.  “I couldn’t resist the delicious pork product.”

“I’m taking a lemon donut just for that.”  Amethyst glanced at Lapis, who was sitting with a mouthful of sweet coffee, not moving.  “Now you gotta swallow it.”

Lapis spat it back into the cup, turning a horrified stare on Amethyst.  “Wait, I have to do _what?”_

Amethyst looked at Lapis, then at Lars and Sadie’s combined stares of disbelief, and then sighed.  “Okay, listen up.  Step One: the esophagus.  Learn it, love it.”

* * *

 

“Garnet,” Pearl said, “I’ve been going over the specs of everything stolen from the human research lab, versus the components of a four-point tower transmitter.  Only about half of them would be any use in making those repairs.”

“Maybe she was stealing for redundancy,” Garner suggested.  “If one thing doesn’t work, try another.”

“That’s possible…but we’ve checked every warp pad within our range.  The Galaxy Warp hasn’t been repaired, and we’ve checked almost every other location of potential interest…the Sea Spire, the Pyramid Temple, the Geode…”

Amethyst, Connie, and Steven arranged themselves on Lion, burping contentedly now and then.  Lapis took a careful seat at the kitchen counter.

Garnet glanced at her.  “You alright?”

“She’s digesting,” Amethyst said gleefully.

“Congratulations,” Garnet said.  “It’s an exciting experience.  Now.  If Peridot were trying to transmit something to the Homeworld with the greatest accuracy, or transmit a distress beacon burst with the greatest range…”

Steven cleared his throat.  “Hey, guys?  We were talking about Sugilite before.  Um.  You remember that big communication tower?”

“Sugilite destroyed it, though.”

“Yeah, but does Peridot know that?”

The Crystal Gems stared at each other silently for a moment, and then Garnet stood up.  “Steven, good thinking.  Gems, to the Communications Hub!”  She paused and looked at Lapis, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable.  “Maybe you’d better stay here.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Connie offered.  Lapis gave her a dubious look.

“Excellent,” Pearl said.  “Lion can stay with you.”

Lion rolled on his back and gave Connie an expectant look.  She sighed.  “I guess this is a no-training belly-rubs evening.”

“Please don’t mention bellies,” Lapis said, a little stiffly.

Pearl hesitated on the warp pad and looked at Garnet.  “What if—you know— _someone_ turns up while we’re away?” 

“Steven’s going to bring his cell phone,” Garnet said.  “If anything unusual happens, Connie, anything at all, _call him.”_

Connie saluted.  “Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

“Don’t let Lion pull you into his soft yet airless mane dimension!” Steven called as he and the Crystal Gems disappeared into the warp stream.

* * *

 

As soon as they’d warped to the Communications Hub, Garnet motioned the other Gems for silence.  Not too far off, coming from behind a pile of rubble and destroyed support columns, there was a faint but audible stream of familiar mutters and grumbles.

_“…complete piece of junk antique…should have been scrapped and replaced with the 4.0 model, but nooo, Peridot, we have to_ conserve resources, _so…hm.  Alright, basic transmission wave established.  Trinary code running…enabling network linkage…”_

The Crystal Gems hopped over a pile of twisted plate metal and girders and snuck up to high ground on the edge of the ruins.

Down below them, just at the water’s edge, Peridot was tinkering with a small, slender tower no taller than herself.  It looked like a burst-open miniature version of one of the Kindergarten’s injectors, four pronged legs planted deep in the sand.

She made a few adjustments, then stepped back and nodded.  “Alright.  That’s better.  Now preparing to…”  She looked down at the tower’s reflective screen, then spun around with a startled screech.  _“YOU!”_

_“Get her,”_ barked Garnet, and she, Pearl, and Amethyst leapt off the ruined ledge and charged.

Peridot slammed her hand down on the tower’s control board, and then snatched it back a moment before Pearl’s spear smashed through it.  A short burst of blue light shot skyward, flickered sideways in geometric patterns, and then vanished.

Surrounded by Crystal Gems, Peridot backed into the tower and accidentally knocked it over into the ocean.  Fuming, she whirled on them.  “Aren’t you Crystal Clunkheads done _wrecking my stuff_ yet?”

“Not even close,” Garnet said, punching a fist into her palm and glaring at her.  “Your _stuff_ is either a problem or an abomination, and either way we’re here to shut you down for good.”

“Besides, you just broke your own stuff,” Amethyst pointed out.  “Ha!  Loser.”

“It’s over, Peridot,” Pearl declared triumphantly.  “You won’t be sending anything to the Homeworld now!  Surrender, and we’ll go easy on you.”

Trotting up behind the Crystal Gems, shield in hand, Steven was close enough to see Peridot’s expression change to a wide, menacing smirk.   She started to chuckle.  “Oh, it’s over, alright.  _For you!”_

There was an unpleasant sound behind Steven.  He turned just in time to see the pile of scrap and girders they’d jumped over rise up, whirring gently, and a green shield roll over it as yellow lines ran all up and down its enormous body.

“Is that…” Pearl began, sounding weak with horror.

“Oh, _coprolite,”_ Amethyst said.

By now, Peridot was laughing maniacally.  “I can’t believe you clods thought I was trying to build a _transmission tower!_ I was activating a hive-mind network!  Say hello to the Drill Class Gem Buster 3.0, Crystal Punks, and then say goodbye!”

Steven stared up, and up, as the robot unfolded the front of its unwieldy body and extended a set of three enormous drills that twitched around in circular spasms.  “It looks like a _giant metal chicken.”_

“Steven, your _shield,”_ Garnet said harshly.  “Draw it now!  This is a Gem _killer!_ This…this _fool_ brought a robot that grinds Gems to dust here in her stupid pod!”

“Oh, they’re standard issue in all escape pods now, at least since that one prison ship takeover,” Peridot gloated.  “I lost a few parts in the crash that couldn’t be replaced by Kindergarten scavenging, of course, but it turns out humans aren’t quite as useless as they look.  And it’s not like _I’ve_ got anything to worry about.”  She planted her hands on her hips and laughed.  “They only hunt criminals designated by the Homeworld’s extranet, which includes, hmm, let me think, YOU GUYS.  Ahahaha—hey!  What are you _doing?  Put me down, you crazy fusion blockhead!”_

Garnet lifted a struggling Peridot over her head and chucked her straight at the Gem Buster with little to no effort.  Peridot bounced off its shielded legs, rolled into a ball as she hit the sand, and unfolded unsteadily, staggering a bit.

“Garnet,” Steven said desperately, “if it kills Gems then maybe don’t throw her at it!”

“Steven,” Garnet said, “I hate to say this, but _she started it._ And now I’m going to finish it.”

Peridot got to her feet, swaying a little and checking that all of her component parts were still intact.  Once she’d determined they were, she started giggling again.  “Aheheheheh…nice try.  _Now who’s the loser?_ That didn’t even hurt.  _You’re_ gonna get smashed to tiny little…”  She paused and looked up when the Gem Buster made a strange sound.

It “looked” down at her with its triple set of drills and said, in a high-pitched too-fast feminine voice, **_“Hostile detected.”_** It turned its drills back to the Crystal Gems.  **_“Association with known hostiles: confirmed.  Attempt to damage Drill Class Unit 1: confirmed.  Conclusion: termination order issued, designation Peridot K14G.”_**

Quaking with terror, Peridot tripped over her own feet and scrambled backwards crabwise over the sand as her voice rose in panic.  “What?  _No!_ I’m not the enemy!  I built you!  I serve the Homeworld loyally!  _Stand down!_ Authorization code Yellow Diamond Six Beta Six Lambda, _deactivate unit!”_

**_“Code not recognized.”_ **

“No, _augh,_ ” Peridot wailed, trying to scramble to her feet and run, “stand down, _stand down, don’t kill me, please…!”_

**_“Prepare for termination,”_** the Gem Buster chirped, and struck.

It bounced back almost immediately, its central drill twanging.

Peridot, who had fallen into a crouch and covered her head with her hands, quit whimpering, blinked, checked that all of her limbs were intact, and then looked around.

The Gem Buster’s blow had driven Steven into the sand almost to his knees, but he still held his shield over himself and Peridot.  His determined smile wavered as he looked down at Peridot.  “Um.  Was I supposed to say something cool?”  She stared at him.  “Like, I don’t know, _terminate this?”_

“That’s _my_ line,” Amethyst bellowed, grabbing Garnet’s hand.  “Garn!  Fastball special!”

“Coming _right_ up,” Garnet said, and threw Amethyst, who spun rapidly in the air directly over the Gem Buster and dropped down, just as Pearl slipped down between its spindly legs and bulbous body, striking up with her spear and warbling a battle cry.

The Gem Buster sparked and staggered, screeching **_“Pre-pre-pre-p-pare for ter-ter-min-ation –pre-pare…”_** , just before Garnet hit it with an uppercut that sent all three of its drills flying and smashed the front half of its body beyond all recognition.

Steven sighed with relief, and turned back to Peridot.  She’d crawled away and summoned half a dozen of her miniature plug robonoids, all of which were trying to repair the damage to the fallen tower.

Garnet picked her up by the scruff of her neck and shook her hard.  Peridot tried to electrocute her and got smacked across the head for it, none too gently.  “Nice try, _not_ going to work on me.  Steven, Amethyst, Pearl, bubble all those robonoids.  We’re headed back to the temple, and Peridot,” Garnet shook her again, “is going to answer for a _lot of things.”_

Peridot tried to claw out of Garnet’s unyielding grip.  Eventually she sagged and gave Garnet a poisonous look.  “What are you going to do, pull off my arms and legs?”

“I’m considering it.  They look modular.” 

Peridot paled.  “What are you picking on me for?  I was just doing my job!”

“Yeah, we’ve heard _that_ one before,” Amethyst growled at her.  “You wanna tell it to those cluster fusions back in the Kindergarten?   Or _me?”_

Peridot looked at the expressions on the Crystal Gems’ faces, and then, very hesitantly, down at Steven.  “Um…you—you won’t let them kill me.  Right?  I mean,” she laughed awkwardly, “you wouldn’t have saved my _life_ if you were just going to let them kill me…”

“Nobody’s gonna kill _anybody,”_ Steven said firmly.  “I mean it.  But you’d better come back to the Temple and tell us what you were doing with that robot!”

“Yeah, whatever, ugh… _hey!”_ Peridot yelped as Garnet shape-shifted her fists into a giant pair of handcuffs and clamped them around Peridot’s forearms.  “What are you _doing?_ You can’t hold me like this!”

“I don’t sleep, I rarely eat, and most of the things I like to put in my mouth, I can drink through a straw,” Garnet said.  “I could do this for _months.”_

Peridot drooped and muttered imprecations about the Crystal Gems as Steven and Amethyst bubbled the last of the flask robonoids.  Steven dusted his hands off and looked around the beach.  For a moment, he thought he heard something shuffling in the sand, like a crab, but when he looked around the fallen tower’s perimeter with Pearl’s help, neither of them found anything.  They dragged Peridot back to the warp pad and entered the stream to return to the Temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang on to your hats, folks.


	6. Beach Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot makes friends.
> 
> Wait, that was a typo.
> 
> Peridot RUINS EVERYTHING.
> 
> Also, Connie catches Peridot monologuing, Lapis brings out the big guns (and a little post-Malachite brain horror), and Beach City's kid population should probably get free therapy for the amount of robots, aliens, and monsters they've been exposed to.

In time, they got the grumbling, cursing, protesting Peridot back to the Temple, and found Connie draped over Lion reading Amethyst’s copy of _The Revengers._ She looked up instantly and beamed, getting to her feet and running to them.  “You got her!”

“Yeah,” Garnet said.  “I decided on the way over I won’t be able to do this for months after all.  She keeps kicking my shins and it’s really annoying.  Let’s just get some chains and a really big box, it doesn’t even need to have air holes.”  She glanced around.  “Where’s Lapis Lazuli?”

Lapis poked her head out from the loft, a quilt draped over her like a monk’s robe.

Steven waved to her.  “Very fashionable, Lapis!”

Peridot took one look at her and all but exploded, struggling to get loose from Garnet’s iron grip.  “YOU?!  You little human-loving fish-smelling double-crossing water-soluble _traitor,_ you’re never gonna get away with this!  What’d you do with that big chunk of Jasper?  _What’s your game this time?”_

Lapis, who’d looked momentarily spooked at the appearance of Peridot, visibly calmed herself down and smiled blandly at Steven.  “So, successful expedition?”

“Don’t you ignore me! _I’ll make you pay for this!!”_

“There was a giant Gem-killing robot,” Pearl said.  “Luckily, Peridot is such an inept technician that it was very easy to defeat.”

“It looked like a big spider-chicken,” Steven said cheerfully to Lapis and Connie.

Peridot, whose anger had clearly reached critical levels from the livid green of her face, hissed, “I’ll show _you_ a spider-chicken!”  One of her fingers flew off, slithered up Garnet’s arm, zipped under her visor, and delivered a zap of electricity between her eyes.

Garnet instinctively let go to smash the errant finger between her hands, trapping it.  Before Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven realized what was happening, Peridot had snatched up Connie and was using her finger-copter to hover in mid-air with her, one hand shoved up against Connie’s face and squishing her cheek. 

Peridot burst out laughing at their dismayed expressions.  “Who’s inept _now,_ Crystal Clunks?  One false move and I’ll crispy-fry this pathetic Steven creature to ashes!”

“ _My_ name’s Connie,” Connie said, muffled and shaken, “I’m not a Steven creature.”

Peridot stopped laughing and stared at her.  “Huh?”

“ _He’s_ Steven, _I’m_ Connie.  We’re the same species!  Humans!  At least, um, mostly!”  Connie twisted in Peridot’s grip to stare at her, her fear giving way to indignation.  “Didn’t you do any _research_ before you came to a completely alien planet?”

“I _did_ research!  Oxygen-based atmosphere, heavy carbon composition, lots of mineral deposits, perfect for seeding _whoa!”_ Peridot was forced to lurch and swerve in mid-air when Lion bounced off the wall and jumped at her, roaring.  A second later, she spun to avoid the spear Pearl had thrown at her face, and squeezed a queasy-looking Connie against her chest, using her as a shield.  After a second’s consideration, she spun the forearm she was holding Connie with skyward and blew a hole in the ceiling.  “Wow!  That actually worked… _I mean, cut that out right now!_ Do you want this tiny Connie human to get messily terminated?  Huh?”  She surveyed the dismayed Crystal Gems and developed a smug look.  “Hah!  I didn’t think so.  See, _this_ is what happens when you get too attached to the wildlife, you dumb clods!”

“Peridot, don’t hurt her,” Steven wailed, “and don’t fly around like that, you’re gonna make her get air-sick and barf!”

Connie struggled to get an arm free.  “Listen, Peridot or whatever your name is, you’re doing this all wrong!”

“I’m…what?”

“You sound like the bad guy in a kids’ show!” Connie told her, gesturing emphatically.  “You’re spending way too much time yelling at the Gems and calling them names when you could have just escaped already!  Or bargained for me as a hostage or something.”

Peridot squinted at Connie.  “Are you…trying to _help_ me?”

“No,” Connie said, and shoved her hand up under Peridot’s visor and jabbed a thumb into her eye.  “See how _you_ like it!  You tried to squash Steven!” Peridot screeched and loosened her grip, giving Connie back her right hand, and she started whaling on Peridot open-handed and kicking madly.  “And you—couldn’t—fly a giant hand spaceship—if your life depended on it!”

“Ow!  OW!  Stop it, you horrible little mammal!”

Steven stared in horror at the Gem-versus-human slapfight going on over his head far above the rafters, and grabbed onto Lion’s mane as he positioned himself for another rush-and-leap.  “Lion, no, she’s going to drop Connie!  You have to get ready to catch her!”

“P, we gotta form Opal,” Amethyst yelled at Pearl.

“We can’t at this range,” Pearl cried, her face a mask of dismay.  “We’d hit Connie and destroy half the Temple!”

“Amethyst,” Garnet said sharply, “I’m going to throw you, get ready…”

All three Gems and Lion paused.  Apart from the sound of Peridot yelling at Connie to stop biting her, there was a complete absence of a particular noise they’d gotten used to over the years.

Steven looked at Lapis, who had shed his quilt like a robe and was staring at Peridot, then he looked out the window.

The ocean’s pounding surf had gone still, and rivulets wider than Garnet was tall were snaking up the beach towards the house and the Temple.  As Steven stared, open-mouthed, it all came through the screen door, fluid as Jell-O and weirdly mobile as it formed a spheroid around the hovering Peridot.

Peridot was starting to point her palm blaster at Connie when she happened to look up and saw the enormous sphere of inward-pointing spikes that had surrounded her.

“Put her down,” Lapis said quietly.  “Or don’t.  It doesn’t really matter to me.  It’s okay, Connie,” she added, almost as an afterthought.  “I won’t hurt you again.  Peridot, on the other hand…”  She grinned.

Whatever was left of Peridot’s nerve failed her completely.  She dropped Connie like a hot potato.  Lion, with Steven on his back, leapt for her through the water sphere, and she caught Steven’s outstretched hands and clung to him like grim death as Lion darted through a hole in the sphere that Lapis had considerately left for him and landed on the temple floor.

Lapis was hovering above the damaged roof rafters now, evenly with Peridot, and her smile was unnerving and familiar, completely inappropriate on her face.  “So?  What’ll it be, _techie?”_

Peridot cringed outright and quickly held up her non-copter hand in surrender.  “Okay!  Okay, I _give,_ I’m coming down!”  She lowered herself to the floor; the sphere came with her until her feet touched hardwood, then Lapis dismissed it out the door and down the beach with a flick of her arm. 

A moment later, the grin was gone and Lapis was blinking.  “Sorry…I tuned out for a minute there.  What was I saying?” She asked Steven, who stared at her round-eyed as he and Connie climbed down off Lion’s back.

“You were being _creepily_ like Jasper is what you were saying!”  Peridot snapped at her, and aimed her palm blaster at Lapis, her eyes bulging with panic and anger.  “You’re going _down,_ you deranged traitor!”

There was a tiny sound behind her.  Peridot turned to find all three Crystal Gems and Lion looming over her, their expressions uniformly ominous.  Her arms sagged.  “Oops.”

_“Get her,”_ growled Garnet.

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Peridot had been rolled up in two yoga mats as insulation and trussed up in a long, thick length of iron chain that Pearl had pulled out of her Gem.  Amethyst was methodically breaking the two gem disruptor wands they’d found on her into pieces.

Connie, Lapis, and Steven were sitting on the mildly damp couch, watching the goings-on, all three of them looking a little shell-shocked.  Steven was absently feeding Lion from the previous day’s shrimp cocktail platter.  Lion seemed to have determined his duty of sitting on Peridot to be done, and was relaxing at their feet and occasionally grooming himself.

“Well,” Lapis said after a while, “that was…something that happened.”

“Yup,” Steven agreed.

“Something I’m not sure I want to talk about.  For a while.  Maybe ever,” Lapis said stiffly.

“…okay.”  Steven patted her hand reassuringly.  “At least this time you put the ocean back nicely?  And you saved Connie!”  He turned to look at Connie.  “And Connie, you were pretty cool, too!  That was a super smart move distracting her like that!”

Connie, who had been sitting worrying at her lower lip, suddenly threw her hands up in despair.  “ _Ugh!_ I can’t believe I did that!”

Steven gave her a puzzled look.  “…was poking her in the eye really gross…?”

“No, Steven, I _let myself_ get captured!  Taken hostage like some kind of ‘50s romance novel heroine!  _Lisa_ wouldn’t have let herself get taken hostage, or at least she’d have had an escape plan, or at the _very_ least she would have known not to approach an enemy unarmed!”  Connie tugged at her hair in frustration.  “How could I have been such a doofus?”

“Connie,” Steven said in open dismay, “what are you beating yourself up for?”

“I was supposed to be training for this!  And I can’t even take one lousy little green Gem in a fight.” 

_“Hey,”_ Peridot squawked, before shrinking under Garnet’s glare.

Connie covered her eyes with her hands.  “It was such a rookie mistake…”

“Well, yes, it was in fact a rookie mistake to leave your weapon out of reach in the presence of a threat,” Pearl said calmly as she used one of Greg’s weights to anchor Peridot’s feet, and then stood up to examine the hole in the ceiling critically.  “Hmm, I could probably fix that in a few hours, we just need a quick trip to the hardware store…”

_“Pearl,”_  Steven said.

Pearl looked at Steven’s stern face, and then at the drooping Connie.  Visibly uncomfortable, she cleared her throat.  “Um, that’s not…I mean…”

“Real sensitive, P,” Amethyst said absently, hopping over the coffee table and elbowing Lapis and Connie into each other to dig around behind the couch with her legs waving in the air.  “Hey, nice psycho face, Double-L.  You had me fooled!”

Lapis’s mouth twitched down.  “Not talking about it.”

“Yeah, sure...”

“What I _meant,”_ Pearl said, more forcefully, “Connie, was that I made the same mistake when I started wielding a weapon that I didn’t always store in my gem.  Before that, my weapons were _always_ within my reach, so I didn’t need to bother!  There were a few…very embarrassing incidents before I got the hang of things.”

“Tree branch,” said Garnet.

Pearl flushed.  “I did _say_ they were embarrassing, Garnet, we don’t have to go into detail.  Anyway,” she went on to Connie, “this is the kind of thing that comes with practice.”

“Then I need to train more!” Connie leapt off the couch.

“And I’ll come train with her, and bring smoothies, and pom-poms, and do stuff with my shield, and make sure you guys don’t start overdoing it in a scary way!” Steven added.  Connie and Pearl shot him looks: Connie’s grateful, Pearl’s perturbed.  “Can’t have a shield without a sword, right?”

“Mmm, well, yes, but do you think that’s a good idea to work on right now, with everything that’s,” Pearl glanced sidelong at Lapis, “going on at the moment?”

“Yes,” Steven said.  He and Connie both made blatant wibbly faces at Pearl. 

She cracked after about two seconds and threw up her arms.  “Alright!  We’ll rework your training schedule to be a bit more intensive, allowing for your parents’ approval and your extracurricular activities, Connie, but not tonight.”

“Tonight we’ll have a beach party,” Steven agreed.

“Yes, we’ll…Steven, what?”

“Yeah!  You guys have been working hard, and we beat that robot, and we captured Peridot, and Lapis remembered to put the ocean back, so we should have a We Beat the Robot Beach Party tonight!”  Steven got up.  “I’ll call Dad!  Connie…”

Connie smiled for the first time since Peridot’s bungled hostage-taking.  “Jam time?”

“ _Rad_ jam time,” Steven agreed, eyes shining.  “Bring your violin!”  Then he looked at Lapis.  “Do you want to come?  You can bring the blanket and be the Lapis Burrito if you want!  You’ll love beach parties, they’re the ultimate beach summer fun _and_ you get to be close to the ocean!”

Lapis forced a smile with a visible effort.  “It sounds…great, Steven.”

“Another party,” Pearl said weakly to Amethyst.  “Another human party…doesn’t anybody like my astronomy party idea?  Building your own telescope is a very social and engaging activity!”

“P, you’re _killing_ me.  Just bust out the tunes and pretend we’re doing math or messing around with gew-gaws or whatever gets you through the night.” Amethyst squeezed out from behind the couch and held something up.  “Found it!”

“…is that a corn chip?”  Steven asked.

“It’s covered with _hair,”_ Pearl said, weak with horror.

Amethyst shrugged.  “Extra fibre.  Anyway, I thought it’d be appropriate.” She grinned.  “It’s a limited-edition lime Dorito.”

* * *

 

The We Beat the Robot Beach Party turned out to be bigger than Steven’s initial plan.  Greg got the call in the middle of a lesson with Buck Dewey, so a few minutes after Greg showed up, the Cool Kids did as well, eventually trailed by Lars, who was trying to look nonchalant and failing, and then Sadie, who brought marshmallows, Pee Dee, who brought a bag of chips, and Kiki, who brought her exasperated sister’s homework and a bag of beach towels.  Greg stared a bonfire, to general acclaim.

The Crystal Gems brought skewers, the mostly-untouched shrimp cocktail plate from Steven’s earlier grocery run, and Peridot, who had stopped threatening and cursing them and devolved into occasional mutters.   Everyone else pulled up a log or a blanket or beach chair, or Lion; Garnet just sat on Peridot.

Her presence generated stares once the kids had all made themselves comfortable.  Eventually, Sadie held up a hand.  “So, you guys seem to be bringing a lot of new friends by lately…?”

“She’s not a friend,” Garnet said.

“Maybe you should text your brother a snap,” Sour Cream suggested to Pee Dee.  “That’s his thing, right, aliens and the paranormal?”

“Maybe he shouldn’t,” Lars said quickly, before Pee Dee could answer.  “Ronaldo gets kind of…weird about his…freaky NSA conspiracy obsession.”

“It’s his _hobby,”_ Pee Dee said crisply to Lars.  “As it happens, he’s filming a V-log tonight and a Let’s Play of the new Koala Princess dating sim, so he couldn’t make it anyway.  And I don’t make a habit of taking pictures of total strangers without permission even if they _are_ space aliens.  Hey, Steven, this is pretty good shrimp.  Did somebody bring lemon?”

“Wait a second.”  Jenny pointed at Peridot suddenly.  “Space alien?  Was that your green pod thing in the cornfield?”

Peridot gave her an incredulous look.  “ _You_ found it??”

Buck and Sour Cream nodded.  “Yo, we did, and we totally jacked your ride.”

“Well, Steven did, but it was our idea.”

“Oh, _what?”_ Kiki snapped at Jenny.  “You told Dad you were studying for finals when you were out _carjacking?_ ”

“Oh come on, like I’d actually tell Dad _anything_ that I do, seriously.  He’d bust a vein.  Anyway, it doesn’t count as carjacking if it’s aliens.”

Peridot jerked so fiercely in her bonds she almost unseated Garnet.  “What are you imbeciles doing, letting _humans_ play with Gem technology?”

“It does sound kind of dangerous,” Sadie admitted, toasting a marshmallow.

“ _I_ think it sounds fun,” Lars said, grinning.  “You guys should have hooked me up!  I love that kind of stuff.”

“Freaky NSA alien conspiracy stuff?” Buck asked innocently.

“Yeah!  Wait, _no,_ not, haha, not that I _love_ it, it’s just…cool, sometimes, you know?  Like, I think it’s good for laughs.”

“That’s because you’re obviously a moron with the processing power of a brick,” Peridot said, “but that wasn’t my point!  What if these fleshy little freaks start _adopting_ it?”

“Says the freak with _pentagon hair_ and little caterpillar fingers,”Lars snapped, flustered.

“And, uh,” Kiki said, “if that was _your_ pod and _your_ hand, little green, then you’re really not one to talk because, you know, you almost _dropped an actual spaceship_ on our town.  Get yourself some driving lessons.  I mean it.”

“ _I_ wasn’t even the one at the controls when…why am I _arguing_ with you about this?  Are you done showing me off as a war trophy yet?” Peridot snarled at Garnet.

“No.”

Jenny snapped her fingers.  “Oh, hey, speaking of aliens, Sadie, you up for a release night party for the new _Energy Consequences_ game?  Girls only, gonna be popcorn and mani-pedis and killing Krurians.  Kiki’s coming too, _maybe_ , if she can unglue her face from her math textbook long enough.”

“ _Some_ of us are planning to go to Empire State U for engineering,” Kiki said.  “Gunga might come, if it ain’t past her bedtime.”

Sadie blinked at Jenny in confusion, and then beamed.  “Oh, uh…sure?  How’d you know I like _Energy Consequences?”_

“Lars mentioned it one time,” Jenny said.  “No offense to my boys, but I like to go thorough with the dialogue options and side quests, and y’all are usually over my shoulder wanting me to blow more ship up than I’m comfortable with.  Plus, you know,” she added to Sadie, “they won’t let me do their toenails, except that once, and Buck puts weird stuff in his popcorn.  I do _not_ want to find _cloves_ in my release night party popcorn while I’m romancing my blue alien ladies, for real.”

Buck and Sour Cream nodded agreeably.

Lars looked decidedly hurt.  “Uh, Jenny, I thought…”

Jenny’s look shut him down immediately.  “I’m serious, this is ladies only.  Lars, ain’t you got your own copy on pre-order, like, delivery this time?  We can all talk it over at school or something the day after.”

Sadie took in Lars’ expression and offered him an awkward smile.  “Lars, you love that game.  It’ll still be fun for you!  You know, different Commander Goatherds, different experiences…it’ll make for great discussion later?”

Lars stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets.  “I’m gonna go take a walk.”

“Lars!”  Sadie reached after him, then settled back down again as he left the ring of firelight, looking unhappy.

Jenny watched him go and then turned back to the beach bonfire with a sigh.  “That boy has _no_ chill.”

“He’s trying,” Sadie insisted.

“ _Way_ too hard.”  Jenny’s expression softened.  “Hey, Steven, who’s your new blue friend?”

Steven, who’d been loading his marshmallows up six to a skewer and sharing them with Connie, looked up, sticky-fingered.  “Oh yeah, you guys haven’t met Lapis yet!  Lapis, Cool Kids, Kiki Pizza, Pee Dee Fryman.  Pee Dee, Kiki, Cool Kids, Lapis Lazuli.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Kiki said, “Didn’t you steal the ocean that one time?”

“I…I _borrowed_ it.” Lapis turned very blue.  “I was going to put it back, eventually.”

Kiki gave her a very specific side-eye, and then nudged Jenny’s ribs.  “This sounds _just_ like you and the jeep.”

“Was it some kind of protest against human complacency?  Like, a really Dada-ist act of eco-vandalism?” Buck asked her.

“Um…ye-es?”

Sour Cream solemnly reached over and shook her hand.  “Next time, steal the Grey House.  We’ll film it.  It’ll be amazing.”

“Sure…” Lapis looked down at her hand in confusion, then at Sour Cream, Buck, and Jenny.  “You don’t feel ‘cool’ to me.”

“Whatever, we don’t care,” Jenny said, examining her nails.  “Cool isn’t in the eye of the beholder.”

“You’re just normal human temperature…”

“ _Oh._ Oh.  Yeah, the—the cool thing is like a metaphor.  Oh man, Steven, you gotta leave her with us for a while, she’s so _confused,”_ Jenny whispered out of the side of her mouth to Steven, whose lower lip trembled.  Jenny immediately raised her hands.  “Aw, Steven, no, I was just kidding.  We promise we won’t steal your friend.”

Peridot scoffed, until Amethyst sat on her head and made her yelp.

Eventually, Lars came back, and after a little while Greg pulled out his guitar.

One by one, the rest of the party-goers produced musical instruments, be it Connie’s violin, Sour Cream’s ancient Chiptunes system, or Buck’s bongos (“They’re ironic,” he explained to Steven, who studied them and then said solemnly, “Nope, I’m pretty sure they’re made of wood,” which made Buck and Sour Cream laugh out loud), including the Crystal Gems, who pulled their own instruments out in a flash of light.  Buck nodded respectfully to Garnet.  “Wicked key-tair, man.  Very vintage ‘80s.”

“I am vintage _everything_ ,” Garnet said.

“Respect.”

Neither Sadie nor Lars had brought anything, but Lars stopped sulking long enough to prove himself a more than decent beatboxer, and Sadie was an alto who knew how to harmonize.

They did a little goofy music as a warm-up, including “All You Need Is Love (And Taco Salad)”, and then Steven taught everyone “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart”.  To cover his embarrassment, Greg got them all started on a round of “I Didn’t Shoot The Sheriff”, and then once they’d all relaxed back into chatting, joking, and laughing, Steven borrowed Greg’s electric guitar and picked out a few notes.

They were accompanied by an odd, haunting sound.

Lapis had drawn a few cubic feet of water out of the ocean and twisted it into a rough, sort of lumpy cylindrical shape, running her fingers lightly over the surface of the water to match and harmonize with Steven’s notes.

Steven’s mouth dropped open.  “It’s just like playing the water glasses!  But you’re doing it with water instead of glass!”

“Whoa.”  The kids from Beach City were all staring openly. 

Greg caught Steven’s eye, smiled at him, and nodded.  “I bet you I know what’d sound good with that!”

Steven nodded back and started in on the opening notes of “The Ballad of Lapis Lazuli”, and after a minute, Lapis followed him, moving her hands to twist water, glass, and sound, as if she were sculpting in the air.  The two of them played together, watched by the silent circle of lit faces, and as the last notes died down, the human kids slowly applauded.

“A glass harmonica made out of _water,_ I have _got_ to get a recording of that!” Greg said.  “It’s cool _and_ spooky and kind of sad?  Whatever, next time I’m setting you two up with a boom mic.”

Lapis turned several shades darker, pulled into the blanket, and muttered something awkward.  Steven let her be, and went out to the surf to join Amethyst, who’d vanished her drum set and was now wading around in the ocean with Sour Cream, Pee Dee, and Connie.  “Whatcha looking for, guys?”

“Conch shells,” Pee Dee said.

“They say if you put one up to your ear, you can hear eternity,” Sour Cream added.  “I want that for a remix.”

“I found a jellyfish!”

_“Amethyst!”_

Amethyst looked at Pearl glaring from the shoreline, then at her new find, and tossed it over her shoulder in disgust.  “O- _kay,_ geez, a few little stingers and it’s like, _oh no Amethyst, they’re poisonous, Steven could get hurt._ ”

Connie had gone very still in the shallows.  “Um, Amethyst, they actually could.  Hurt Steven.  And the rest of us.  With their stingers.”

“Psht, not likely.  This one time I wore one as a hat for like a _week_ and nothing bad happened.”

“…let’s go back to shore,” Sour Cream said carefully.  “I mean, being free-spirited is one thing, jellyfish are another.  I’m allergic.”

“Fine, just go,” Amethyst said, half-affectionately and half-contemptuously.  “I’mma stay out here with and look for bioluminescent sting-y stuff.”

“Why are all of these skinny humans with squeaky voices so weird and tetchy?” Peridot demanded of Pearl, jerking her chin at the teenagers.

 “Well,” Pearl said a little distractedly, fiddling with Sour Cream’s Chiptunes setup to try and improve the sound purity and quality, “they’re human adolescents!  In other words, raging irrational bags of hormones and biologically poor impulse control with underdeveloped higher brain functions walking around in rapidly-developing adult-looking bodies, so none of them can really be expected to make decisions based on empirical evidence.  In fact, I’m impressed, with the amount going on in their post-pubescent systems, that they’re even able to coordinate enough to put their pants on the right way around!  Although their hats seem to be a lost cause…”  Pearl trailed off, not because of the fact that Sadie, Kiki, Lars, Jenny, and Buck were all giving her an identical Look, but because of some inward consideration.  She turned to Garnet.  “Oh, no.  Do you think…is there a possibility that _Steven_ will experience adolescence?”

“It’s highly probable.”

“Oh dear.”  Pearl gave the teenagers around the fire a look of deep concern.  “I suppose I’d better start taking notes.  Do you think he’s going to start trying to cultivate _facial hair?_ ”  She shuddered.  “I really hope not…”

“Your mom—sister—whatever,” Lars said to Steven, who’d squelched up to him and sat down in the sand beside him, “is seriously such a killj— _oh my god what is that thing?!”_

A shadow fell over the fire, and the circle of humans and Gems looked up at a familiar bulbous, stick-legged figure blotting out the moon.  Sour Cream, caught flat-footed behind Buck, stared up at it like a deer in the headlights.  Behind him, Connie stood frozen in the act of wringing out her skirt.

“That,” Peridot said patiently into the silence, “would be a killer robot.  Any further questions?  Comments?  No?”

Greg threw down his guitar.  “Kids, _get in the cars._ Anyone who can’t fit in Jenny’s jeep,” he tossed Sadie a set of keys, “use my van!”

“There was a _second_ Gem Buster?”  Garnet and Pearl drew their weapons as Amethyst dropped her trove of jellyfish and ran back to shore, whip in hand.  Steven generated his shield immediately and ran to join them, putting himself between the campfire circle and the enormous, spindly machine. 

Whatever bravado might have kept the older kids in place, Pee Dee’s screech of shock caused Sour Cream to scoop him up and run off with him.  Kiki tossed Jenny the keys to their jeep.

Connie started to run after him, then ground to a halt.  “Steven, I still don’t have my sword,” she said, a little desperately, before Greg picked her up and carried her to the van.

“You’re going back with Sadie and Lars!  I’ll…I’ll come back here and keep an eye on Steven.”

“But I want to help!”  Connie tried to struggle out of Greg’s arms, and when she realized she couldn’t accomplish this to any useful outcome, she shouted over Greg’s shoulder as he ran, “Lapis!  _Don’t let anything happen to Steven!”_

“You gotta ask _her?”_ Amethyst hollered, but Garnet laid a quelling hand on her shoulder.

“Alright, Crystal Gems, just like the last time.”  She booted Peridot out of the way.  “Lion, keep an eye on this one and make sure she doesn’t slither away again.  Amethyst!”

“Way ahead of ya, Garn!”  Amethyst jumped into a spin, and Garnet punched her in an arc, aiming to land on the Gem Buster’s chassis far back from where the drill could reach.  Pearl darted out for an upward strike as it “looked” up at Amethyst.

A second before she hit, it said, **_“Analyzing, access real-time memory archives,”_** and took three sharp steps backwards, sending Amethyst crashing hard into Pearl and flattening them both.  As the two woozy Gems tried to pick themselves up, the Gem Buster bent down, its legs folding and telescoping and its drills driving down to strike them both, aiming for their gems with pinpoint accuracy.

There was no time for Steven to cross the space and shield them on his own.  Garnet crouched to leap and attack the drills, but Steven grabbed her arm.  “Garnet, Garnet!  _Stevenbowling!”_

Steven shield-bubbled himself, and Garnet punched the bubble as hard as she could.  Steven flew through the air, flattened against the back of the bubble, until it crunched into the Gem Buster’s body, tearing it clean off its spindly legs and crushing it flat against the cliffs.  Lying on the bubble floor, he looked around at the crushed metal and fire until Pearl came panting up and rolled him out back onto the sand.

As soon as he un-bubbled, the exhausted Crystal Gems checked him over, and then they all looked at the remains of the robot.  Garnet stepped into the rubble and methodically smashed the torso until it was about the width of tin foil, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the ocean.  She dusted her hands off on her pants.  “ _Someone_ has some serious explaining to do.”

Lion came trotting up, Peridot in his mouth like a particularly angry not-quite-dead bird.  He dumped her at Garnet and Steven’s feet as Greg came running up, panting.  “What _was_ that thing?”

“That was the Gem Buster Unit _2,”_ Peridot said tartly.  “They come as core units in pairs in escape pods, and they’re _learning_ programs with a self-build component.  In the event of one of them being destroyed, the other takes data and resources from the wreckage, and then evolves its approach and equipment to overcome its target.  If you had half a brain, you’d have figured that out for yourselves.”

“Thanks for _telling_ us,” Amethyst growled.  “I oughta punt you into the ocean right after your stupid robot!”

“It’s the second unit?” Pearl asked, restraining Amethyst carefully.  “Then…why did it look exactly like the first one?”

“What?”  Peridot managed to squirm until she was able to see the smouldering ruins of the robot, the familiar spindly legs.  Her eyebrows crept up.  “That…shouldn’t look that way.  The newer model should have been sturdier and more powerful.”

“It’s the same one that attacked us before,” Garnet said.  “Just not with half its body caved in.”

“Well, they don’t _self-repair,”_ Peridot snapped at Garnet.  “That would be _disastrous._ With their programming, they would immediately start building more Gem Busters and evolving their schema and capabilities…”  She froze suddenly.  “The Steven.”

“Just Steven,” Steven corrected, holding his spinning head as Greg picked him up and hugged him tightly.

“What happened to my robonoids?”

“We bubbled all your darn robonoids we could find and put ‘em in the Temple,” Amethyst said, “why?”

“If…but if one of them escaped and accidentally went to work on a Drill Class Gem Buster…theoretically, it’s never been attempted before, but the Buster might be able to replicate…”

“Your weird gross robo-goo?”

“The _nanite fluid!_ Their technologies and silicon bases aren’t incompatible!  That means they could be building more self-repairing Gem Busters _right now.”_

“There’s an easy way to check up on that,” Garnet said.  “Party’s over.  We’re going to the Communication Hub.  Greg?”

“Sure this is a good idea?  This is a lot of near-death experiences today for a little guy.”  Greg held tightly on to Steven.

Garnet nodded and looked down the beach.  “Lapis Lazuli?  _Lapis Lazuli._ ”

Lapis was standing rooted where she’d been, unmoving, hugging herself, the blanket lying in the sand at her feet.

Steven wiggled out of Greg’s arms and trotted over to her.  “Lapis?  Are you okay?  Are you…gonna come with us?”

Lapis shook her head.  Her teeth were chattering.  “Steven, I…I…”

“It’s okay!  Stay here with Lion, he’ll protect you.  Dad, can you stay with Lapis?  I don’t think she’s okay right now.”  Steven turned to walk away, but Lapis suddenly gripped his arm and held it tightly.

“Steven, I don’t…I don’t know what’s happening to me…I wanted to run and I _couldn’t…_ I couldn’t fight…I didn’t _want_ to fight, not like I did in the house…”  She reached up to touch her own face the way she would have a foreign object.  “What’s wrong with me?”

The Crystal Gems and Greg exchanged glances, and Garnet rubbed her forehead.  “That’s not abnormal.  I think Steven’s right and you should stay here.”

“I didn’t know what I was supposed to _do…”_

“Next time there’s a threat while there’s human civilians present, try to get them out of the way, safely,” Garnet said.  “That’d be a big help.”

Lapis nodded silently, and let go of Steven’s arm.  “I’ll wait at the house.”

Steven patted her shoulder.  “See you soon, Bob!”  He looked after her, his face closing with worry as she trailed up towards the stairs, and then hurried to join the Crystal Gems again as they made and discarded plans.

* * *

 

There wasn’t one Gem Buster when they returned to the Communications Hub.  There were two.

_“I already hate these stupid things more than I ever hated your dumb marbles,”_ Amethyst roared as she and Steven tried to flatten one of the Gem Busters with their combined ballistic force.  Pearl was feinting and fencing with the other as Garnet attempted to punch its now-sturdy legs out from under it.

“Well, I’m _so_ sorry— _augh!”_ Peridot flinched; the Gem Buster that Garnet and Pearl were fighting stumbled right over where the Crystal Gems had left her prone in the sand in their rush to combat.  “I really feel your pain when I’m tied up and _stuck here like a hunk of polished granite_ waiting to get my gem split by one of them!”

“Quit whining and maybe somebody might _actually_ feel sorry for you!”  Amethyst snarled at her in between dodging Gem Buster claws.

“I could always just throw you into the ocean,” Garnet snapped as she punched a Gem Buster’s leg out, causing it to go down in a sparking, warbling heap.  “You’d be safe there, technically.”

Peridot went wild-eyed and started trying to squirm away like an excitable caterpillar.  “Are you _nuts?_ There’s probably things in that hydrosphere that would _eat_ me!”

Garnet and Pearl finished pounding their Gem Buster flat and went to help Steven and Amethyst finish off theirs.  As the four of them dusted themselves off, Pearl crouched down to examine the remains of the foe they’d just destroyed.  “Oh dear.  These ones do look better constructed and less…chicken-like than the ones we fought before.  They must have rebuilt themselves using salvage from the Communications Hub…”  She looked at the wreckage and put her knuckles in her mouth.  “There’s enough of it here for them to build an entire army.”

“We’ll just have to gather it up and put it somewhere it can’t be found,” Garnet said.  “Starve them of resources.  Assuming these ones aren’t the only…”

There was an unpleasant, metallic sound from behind them.  The Crystal Gems turned as one to see the second Gem Buster rising, its joints re-joining and larger, more menacing drills protruding from its re-assembling torso compartment.  It turned a green scanner-searchlight on the Crystal Gems.  **_“Analyzing, access real-time network memory archives.”_** It reared back.  **_“Prepare for termination.”_**

“Did I mention I _hate_ these things?” Amethyst growled.

“Uh, listen,” Peridot said, a little meekly, from her prone position near the tide line, where she had a very clear line of sight to the presence of the Gem Busters and her complete lack of escape opportunities, “the Drill Class Gem Busters have, uh, pretty clearly adapted the repairing nanite gel from a plug robonoid…”

“You _don’t_ say,” Pearl hissed at her, brandishing her spear at the Gem Buster.

“…so if you want to defeat the unit permanently, you’ll need to destroy the neural net transmitter located in the chassis.  I mean, it won’t kill the Gem Buster instantly, but it’ll disable access to the network hive mind and the nanite repair program, _and_ prevent it from using your fights with other Gem Busters to learn how to most efficiently smash you to tiny shards.”

Garnet turned on her and dropped her visor, eyes wide with horror.  _“What?”_

“I _told you_ it was an evolving program with a linked intelligence system and you _saw_ it in action yourselves,” Peridot said with exaggerated patience, “weren’t any of you sandstone chunks listening to me?”

 At which point the Gem Buster lunged straight for Pearl, swatting her halfway down the beach.

Its next hit, aimed at Steven, bounced off the shield, and then he withdrew it and ran down the beach to where Pearl was trying to stand upright, coughing.  “Pearl!  _Pearl!_ Are you okay?”

“I’m alright…Steven…”  She gasped with pain as she tried to use her spear to lever herself upright.  Steven quickly got on her uninjured side and helped her, swaying, to her feet.

Garnet and Amethyst were whaling savagely on the Gem Buster, Garnet tearing parts of it open with her bare hands and only just managing to dodge the strikes of its drills.  She yanked up a handful of cables with a tiny silvery device joining them all together.  “Is _this_ the neural net transmitter?”

Peridot wiggled upright and squinted.  “Yyyyes.  Yes it is.”

“ _Finally.”_ Garnet tore it out and crushed it, and she and Amethyst went back to pounding on the Gem Buster until it was nothing but scrap metal bits littered up and down the beach.

Pearl came limping up with Steven, who was spitting furiously into his free hand.  As soon as he had enough, he reached around and carefully pressed it to her injured side.  Pearl gingerly touched her ribs, and then smiled down at Steven.  “Thank you.  That feels much better.”

“So…I healed you?”

“Erm…I’m not exactly sure, but endothermic warmth _does_ feel nice, even on an artificially projected form.  Anyway, I should be fine in just a minute or two.”

The third Gem Buster, the one they’d been examining, picked that moment to stand up unsteadily.

The Crystal Gems and Steven turned to look at it with open horror.  Pearl grabbed a handful of her own hair.  “Are you _kidding me?”_

“They _all_ have a neural network transmitter,” Peridot sang sarcastically.  “Also, you’d better watch your Pearl,” she added in her more normal tone.  “The Gem Busters seem to have figured out she’s the weak link of the bunch.”  All three Crystal Gems and Steven turned to glare at her, and she quailed.  “I’m just stating facts!”

“At least we can punch _these_ things to a fine glittery dust,” Garnet said, and readied her gauntlets.  “I need some catharsis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! So many kudos and comments, I cannot thank you guys enough, you're all lovely. Next chapter should be on deck soon!


	7. Interplanetary Goodwill Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot continues to make everyone's life harder, and discovers she is stuck on the WORST planet. Garnet masters Communicating With Human Adults By Phone and (almost) runs out of patience. Lapis finds out what's so funny about hot dogs.
> 
> The Crystal Gems and Steven discover they're not as finished with the Gem Busters as they'd hoped, and Pee Dee Fryman calls in reinforcements.

Garnet dragged Peridot off the warp pad, dumped her unceremoniously in the middle of the Temple floor and then rolled her into the kitchen, and went back for Steven, Pearl, and Amethyst, all of whom were sagging with exhaustion.  Once she’d deposited them on the couch next to Greg, she picked up the beach house phone and started dialling.  “Hello.  Is this Mr. Pizza speaking?  This is Mum Universe.  Yes, the tall one.  Square hair.  Yes.”

“Uh, Garnet,” Greg said, in between checking over his clearly exhausted son, “I already called all the kids’ parents.  Everyone made it home okay.”

Garnet didn’t seem to hear him.  “Yeah…no.  I called to…apologize.  Your daughters were…oh.  Alright.  Thank you.  Yes.  You’re welcome.”  Garnet hung up and turned to look at Steven.  “I think I’m getting better at this telephone thing.”

“You didn’t even _mention_ bleeding or swords,” Steven said with a weak smile.  “Was Jenny and Kiki’s dad mad at us?”

“No…Jenny seems to think it was exciting and that they weren’t in any real danger, which confirms what Pearl said about teenagers.  Mr. Pizza thanked us.  For saving his kid, again, although Jenny’s grounded from night-time beach parties for the rest of her life or until she turns eighteen, whichever comes first, for being a bad influence on her sister.  They were fighting about it when I hung up, but yeah, she is a bad influence.”  Garnet shrugged and went back to dialling.

Steven and Greg sat together in silence as she went down the list of parents, once switching over to Vietnamese for Lars’ mother and once to an odd “wah-WAH-wah” that had to have been for Yellowtail and Vidalia’s household.  Eventually she hung up and nodded to the Crystal Gems.  “Nobody’s hurt, but a lot of people are really in it for unauthorized beach partying.”

“Connie?” Steven said plaintively.

“She and Sadie came up with a story for her mum and dad.  Apparently Kiki’s her maths tutor and the three of them agreed that as far as the Maheswarans are going to know, Connie stayed late at her house after violin lessons and got a ride home from Sadie.”

“What about Sadie’s mom?” 

“She’s not that upset.  She’s been the town mailperson for twenty years.  She said she thinks of the monsters like badly-trained Rottweilers.  Occupational hazard.”

“Lars?”

“Who cares about _him?”_ Amethyst grunted before face-planting into the couch.  Steven gave her a wounded look.

“He’s grounded from everything ever,” Garnet said.

“But that’s not fair, it wasn’t his fault…” Steven began.

“His mum explained it to me.  He was rude about staying out late and lied about where he was and what he was doing, and she and his dad don’t appreciate that since he’s been doing it a lot lately.”  Garnet sat down. 

“Oh.”

Greg hugged Steven to his side carefully.  “So, the robots are all gone?”

“We’re not sure.  Once we’ve rested up, Pearl, Amethyst, and I will go back and try to clean up everything from the Hub that the Gem Busters could possibly use to build more of themselves.”

“Garnnnn,” Amethyst groaned, “I hope you’re gonna let us _crawl_ ‘cause I feel like I’ve been Sugilite for three weeks straight.  I am _dead._ ”

Garnet looked at Pearl, who was flopped out like a rag doll and wheezing gently, and then at Greg, who said, “I know you’re awesome, but you _do_ look like you went six rounds with a bunch of giant Gem-killing robots.”

“I’ll go do it.”

Everyone, Peridot included, turned to stare up at Lapis, who had been sitting quietly on Steven’s bed in the loft since the Crystal Gems’ return.  She dropped the quilt she’d been hiding in and stood up.  “I haven’t had to fight anything…lately, and I’ll be able to escape quickly if there are more of them around that Hub thing.”

The Crystal Gems all exchanged brief, dubious looks.  Steven, who was lapsing into sleep against Greg’s stomach already, mumbled, “Thank you, Lapis.”

“That would be helpful,” Pearl admitted, exhaustion in every line of her face.  “Do you know how to use the warp pads?”

“I’m not freshly mined,” Lapis said.  “I remember how they work.”  She looked down at Steven, who was dropping off completely, struggling to keep his eyes open, and her face softened.  “I can do this.”

“Hey, Bob,” Amethyst said, turning on her side to squint at Lapis, “don’t get killed or anything, huh?”

“She’s right,” Garnet said.  “If you encounter any Gem Busters, don’t try to fight them.  Escape and locate the nearest safe warp pad.  Your best bet coming from the Hub is probably Mask Island.”

Lapis inclined her head slightly to Garnet, floated down the stairs, trotted onto the pad, and disappeared into the warp without another word.

In the silence that followed, Steven mumbled sleepily, “D’you think she’ll come back?”

“Probably,” said Garnet.

“Is that your future…vision…prediction…?”

“I don’t know.  When there’s factors in play that I’m not aware of, my predictions aren’t…” Garnet trailed off as Steven began to snore quietly.  “O-kay.”

“Aw, Garnet, you know it’s Pearl’s job to bore Steven into a coma.”  Amethyst yawned loudly.

Pearl didn’t even comment, just snuffled slightly and flopped sideways onto Amethyst.

Garnet sat down carefully in a spare beach chair and looked at Greg.

“I think she’ll come back,” Greg said.  “The whole time Steven was gone, she kept pacing around and hugging that quilt.  I think she’s really bonded with him,” he added hopefully.

“Yeah,” Garnet said.  “Or something.”  She looked down at Lion, who was sleeping on his back with all fours in the air and his tail twitching.  “At least _somebody_ here isn’t worried.”

“He was like that the whole time Lapis was here,” Greg said.  “Pretty much ignored us both and went to sleep!”

“Did he,” said Garnet.  “Hm.”  She leaned back in her chair and studied Lion.

* * *

 

Lapis didn’t come back that night.

Steven, Greg, and the Gems were having breakfast when the warp pad reactivated.  All of them looked up sharply, but only Lapis appeared.  She looked tired, but not battered, and wordlessly made her way over to the table, pulled a chair out, and sat down heavily.  She blinked.  “What’s…all this?”

“Pancakes with chocolate chips and fruit salad,” Pearl said.  “You need to get the milk to butter ratio perfectly correct, and then ensure that the chips enhance rather than spoil the aesthetic.  As for the fruit salad, the fiber and vitamin content need to balance out the empty carbohydrates of…Steven?  Steven, you’re defeating the purpose of the arrangement.”

Steven had already piled five pancakes on a plate, doused them with syrup and whipped cream, and stuck them in front of Lapis.  Amethyst, halfway through her own stack, looked at them hungrily.  “If you don’t want ‘em, Double-L, I’ll take ‘em.”

Lapis stared down at the pancakes.  “I’ll…I’ll just have some of that coffee stuff for now, thanks, Steven.”

Garnet poured her a cup.  “So, how did you…”  She trailed off when it became clear Lapis’ attention was rooted to her fellow diner, directly across the table from her.

Peridot levelled a poisonous scowl at Lapis.  She was still wrapped up in mats and firmly chained, but someone had set her up in a kitchen chair.  Someone else had set a stack of pancakes in front of her, similarly decorated to Lapis’.  “I suppose _you’re_ enjoying this.”

“You do look pretty funny.”

“Yeah, being tortured with disturbing food that comes out of a can is a _laugh riot._ No wonder you and Jasper were able to stick it out as a fusion for so long.  You’re as big of a weirdo as she is… _ow, hey!”_

Steven, who had poked Peridot in the arm with a spork, gave her a stern look.  “Now listen, this isn’t torturing, this is an interplanetary goodwill breakfast that Dad and I made for you and the rest of the Gems because we all got off _completely_ on the wrong foot.”

“Killer robots’ll do that,” Amethyst muttered.  “Hey, pass the salt.”

“So will those _experiments_ in the Kindergarten,” Garnet said.  “Coffee, Greg?”

“Thanks!”

“Oh, and of course there’s those times you tried to kill Steven, or were complicit in trying to kill Steven,” Pearl added pleasantly, inhaling from a perfectly brewed cup of camomile tea.  “Taking Connie hostage and threatening her was just the cherry on the icing on the cake of how awful you are.”

Steven squinted at the Crystal Gems.  “I’m sensing _not_ a lot of goodwill here, you guys!”

“Nah, Steven, we’re _full_ of goodwill.  Getting chased after by murderous, _intelligent_ robots is totally something we’re just gonna shake off.”

“Steven did a drawing of the new ones for me,” Greg said.  “That’s some scary stuff!  Like a Roomba had a baby with HAL and it got bug legs somehow!  What are you doing bringing that kind of thing to Earth, anyway?” He demanded sternly of Peridot.  “Somebody could really get hurt.”

“Uh, I think I _might_ have mentioned a couple of times that they’re for _killing Gem criminals,”_ Peridot growled at him.  “Which, thanks to your buddy Lapis LaTraitor and your precious Crystal Gems here, now includes _me_ because my _override codes don’t work!”_

“So of course, you’re helping the Crystal Gems against them out of the selfless goodness of your heart,” Lapis said, staring Peridot in the eye.  A moment later, she braved digging into the pancakes, chewed, and swallowed, her eyes widening.  “Mm!  Steven, these are _good_.”

Steven beamed at her, starry-eyed.

“Don’t Gems get, I don’t know, fair trials?  Defense lawyers?  Uh, appeals courts?”  Greg looked around the table at the uniformly incredulous expressions of every full Gem present, and sighed deeply.  “No, huh?  Eeesh.”

Peridot tilted her head towards Greg.  “What’s _he_ doing here, anyway?  What’s his purpose, some kind of servant?”

“He’s my _dad_!  Peridot, if you keep saying stuff like this, I’m not gonna feed you and then your pancakes are going to get all gross and soggy and the whipped cream will melt and the strawberry will fall off the top and roll down the table and under the sofa and then nobody’s going to find it for six or seven months and then Amethyst will find it and eat it and _nobody wants that.”_ Steven sat back in his chair, arms crossed, and gave Peridot a deeply disapproving look.

Amethyst raised a hand.  “ _I’m_ down for six month old strawberries.”

“I’m his father,” Greg explained to Peridot.  “I take care of him!  Well, the normal human-him stuff, anyway, the Gem stuff’s a little out of my league, but, y’know, diapers, music lessons, learning to walk, tying your shoelaces, colic, pureed vegetables, all that stuff I’m pretty good at!  And I contributed 50% of his DNA,” Greg added as an afterthought.  “Give or take.”

Peridot was staring at Greg in mounting, confused horror.  “But…wait a second.  He’s got this Rose Quartz gem, and the shield, which I _guess_ is significant or something, so that means…”

“Steven’s mom was a Gem and his dad, i.e., me, is a human!”

“…Rose Quartz caught babies off a human.”

“Uh.  Singular baby, but, yeah!  Weird way to put it…”

“And then died.”

“Wellll…not technically, it’s complicated, they just can’t be in the same place at the same time, Steven, maybe we’d better let Peridot eat her pancakes in peace and go down to the hardware store to grab some new shingles for the roof…”

“Look,” Peridot said with exaggerated patience, “I had to spend the _entire trip_ to Earth listening to Jasper _never shutting up_ about Rose Quartz and her _stupid_ army and her _stupid_ tactics.  Between her and the Blue Sulk over here I just about _cracked_ during that trip when I could have been maxing out my scores on the Galactic Mineworks training sim in a nice peaceful Diamond-class freighter, and now you’re telling me that the person all of you losers dropped everything to go prancing after, the Gem you betrayed the Homeworld for, is now dubiously non-existent because of _the tiny Steven?”_

Steven nodded slowly.  Greg looked pained.

“…that’s almost the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”  Peridot grinned.  “I betyou Crystal Clowns have been _crying_ about it.”

Pearl abruptly scooped Peridot’s pancakes away from her and dumped them all in the trash.  “Greg, what a wonderful idea, the hardware store!  Let’s all three of us go.”

“Awww, Pearl, no, the goodwill pancakes!”

“I think we’re done with goodwill pancakes for now, Steven.  Why don’t we stop on the way to the store and pick you up some new little men from that vending machine you like?”

“I wanna ride along and get some more sandpaper,” Amethyst declared loudly.  “Feels goo-oo-ood on my toes!  Hey, Steven, we can stop by Connie’s place on the way back and say hi, bring her a two-by-four?  Steven?  How’s about it?”

Steven was staring at Peridot sadly.  “I was really hoping you were a…nicer person than this.”

“Uh…we’re.  Not on the same side?  I’m your enemy?  Always have been, always will be?”  Peridot looked at Pearl blankly.  “Didn’t any of you explain this to him?  Yeesh.  I’m not sure if I want to watch when he tries to snuggle Jasper or whatever… _ack!_ ”

Garnet got up and threw Peridot over her shoulder like a rag doll.  “I declare this interplanetary goodwill breakfast adjourned.  Peridot and I are going outside for a chat.”

Steven grabbed her wrist and looked up at her with big eyes.  “Don’t punch her, Garnet.  Please?”

“No punching, Steven.  I promise.  Pearl, Amethyst, you go ahead with Greg and Steven.  Lapis Lazuli, you stay here.  We’re just going to talk, Gem to Gem.” 

Peridot’s expression became one of pure panic.  “Which is code for _crush me to sand…_ ow!  Put me down, you square-headed maniac!”

As soon as Garnet and Peridot were out the door and down the stairs, Lapis stood up, picked up her pancake plate, and moved to follow them.

“Lapis,” Pearl protested, “Garnet said…!”

“ _You_ might take orders from her,” Lapis said.  “I don’t.”

“We don’t take _orders,_ we choose to follow her recommendations!  And right now, the smart thing would be for you to not…wait, Lapis Lazuli!”

The screen door had already swung shut behind her.

Greg shrugged.  “I guess she doesn’t like being told to sit around in any old place when she’s not having a bad spell, huh?”

“Oooh…I know she means well, and I _know_ she’s had a difficult time, but that Gem is worse than an alley cat…yes, Steven?”

Steven peered up at Pearl, large-eyed.  “Can we stop by a different vending machine in town?  I have an idea!”

* * *

 

Outside on the beach by the cliffs, out of the sightline of both Temple and beach house, Garnet dropped Peridot in a heap right next to a flock of seagulls, who all took off shrieking in outrage.  She ignored them and stared down at her prisoner, arms folded. 

_“Don’t crush my gem,”_ Peridot howled, trying to curl in on herself like a pill bug and failing.

Garnet stood in silence for a moment, and then pinched the bridge of her nose.  “You’re not to talk to Steven about his mother like that.  She didn’t ‘catch’ babies.  She made a choice.  A very…personal choice.  Steven is the result of that choice.”  She paused and looked down at Peridot, her visor glinting menacingly in the sun.  “We love him, and we would do _anything_ to protect him.  Especially from Gems like you who don’t even think twice before they hurt someone.”

Peridot squinted up at Garnet, confusion and fear warring on her face.  “I don’t know what the _heck_ you expect from me!  I’m a _Gem!  You’re_ a Gem!  We’re the most superior and advanced species in the _entire galaxy,_ nothing’s even _close_ to our level, and here _you_  guys are getting all mushy about these squishy little aliens on some _backwater_ planet that only has a rich resource base going for it.  I don’t _get_ it!”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“You never bothered to get it.  You just do what you’re told, and never question what the Homeworld expects of you.”

“Hey!  I _happen_ to have a Class D field technician rating, and it was _going_ to get bumped up to Class C if you _clods_ hadn’t wrecked my equipment, blown up my escort, and ruined _everything!”_ Peridot planted her face in the sand with a groan.  “Now I’m probably going to get bumped down to a Class G.  _Organic waste specimen retrieval and analysis._ Thousands of years, sorting through literal…”

Garnet sighed.

Peridot looked up at her.  “What?”

“You’re such a _child._ Actually, that’s offensive to Steven and Connie.  _They_ care about someone besides themselves.”

“Who else _is_ there to care about?  If I don’t look after my own career, who’s gonna do it for me, huh?”  Peridot glared at Garnet.  “Oh, wait, you’re a _perma-_ fusion.  Am I supposed to get _myself_ a nice emotional crutch that way?”  Garnet went absolutely, chillingly quiet, and Peridot, realizing she’d crossed a line, tried to squirm away.  “Um…haha…that is, I mean…”

After a very long, uncomfortable silence, Garnet said, “I can’t believe I’m starting to feel sorry for you.”

Peridot blinked, her face becoming a picture of total confusion.  “Whaaa?”

“You really are _that_ blind.  It’s…sad.”  Garnet sighed.  “Rose would have been better at this.  She’d have known what to say to you.  She’d have understood, and probably forgiven.”  She looked down at Peridot.  “I’m not a naturally forgiving person, and I can’t stop being angry at you for what you did to those Gems at the Kindergarten…”

“That wasn’t my _idea,_ those experiments were in place before I was even mined!  I was just checking up on their status, it was on my _list_!”

“…But if I take the anger out on you, I’m no better than a bully.  And you’re really just a symptom of a much bigger problem.”

Peridot uncurled slightly.  “R-really?”

“Yes.”  Garnet paused for a moment, and then said, “That doesn’t mean I don’t find you _really_ irritating.  But if you don’t try to harm this planet any more than you already have, or hurt Steven or any other humans, then I won’t have a reason to fight you.  And believe me, that’s something neither of us want.  Are we clear?”

Peridot nodded slowly.  “Uh.  Yes.  I…guess?”

“It’s a start.”

“…do these little avian freaks pecking my feet count as ‘harming the planet’?”

Garnet looked at the seagulls perching on Peridot and pecking at her joints.  “No.  They’re fair game.”

As Peridot shouted at the seagulls and bucked them off, Garnet became aware of a sound.  She looked up.

Lapis was perched on a crag about ten feet up the cliff face, scraping the last bits of syrup and whipped cream off her plate and licking her fork.  She looked down at Garnet.  “Hi.”

“That does _not_ look like staying in the house.”

“I’m not a furnishing.”

“No, you’re not.”  Garnet paused for a moment and leaned her back against the cliff to stare out at the sea and at the edge of Beach City’s opposite cliff face.  “Sorry.”

Lapis jumped down lightly to land next to her and crossed her arms.  “So…Rose Quartz.  That’s a big role to fill.”

“I’m not filling it.”

“The other two seem to think so.”

“They needed someone.  I…stepped in.  But I’m not Rose.  I can’t be.  Even Steven can’t be Rose…whatever some people might think.”

Lapis shrugged.  “I never even got close enough to her to know what she was like.  Her enemies hated her, and respected her, I guess, at least a little.  All her followers usually sounded like you, or like Pearl.  She was either a demented villain or she was a perfect goddess.”

“She was neither.  Just a Gem who wanted to show other Gems a different way of seeing things.  Now she’s gone.”

“But Steven’s still here.  Steven is…he’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”  Lapis gave Garnet a searching look.  “Do you love Steven as much as you loved Rose Quartz?”

“It’s different, but, yes.  Maybe even a little more, and I’ve only known him for a little over a decade.  I’d die for him,” said Garnet, matter-of-factly.  “I’d rather live for him, though.  Dying for someone, permanently, is short-sighted.  With a few very limited exceptions.”

Lapis nodded slowly.

Peridot, who had finally managed to convince the seagulls that she wasn’t likely to yield fish, chips, or pizza, mostly via yelling at them and cursing them, rolled over to the other two Gems and glared up at them.  “Are you two done or did you need to _hug it out_?”

“I meant to ask you,” Lapis said, ignoring Peridot, “if Steven has the Rose Quartz gem, and she can’t exist while he does, but he has a human ‘parent’…how does that work?”

Garnet told Lapis, in detail, with gestures.  After about five minutes, Lapis’ cheeks were puffing out with muffled laughter.  “Oh, that’s…that’s _hysterical._ They really…?”

“All the time.  Mostly for fun.”

“This explains the wieners…”  She paused and looked down.

Peridot was goggling up at them, her face a mask of utter horror.  _“Oh my jumping diamond mountain ranges is that a THING that humans actually DO?”_

“Yup.  _All_ the time,” Garnet said.

“But what do they do with the _offspring?_ How do they come out of the…oh no.  _Please_ tell me they do the civilized thing and hatch from an egg.  Please tell me the Steven wasn’t the result of a…”

“Live body birth,” said Garnet, with a tiny touch of relish.

The seagulls, which had perched on a rock about twenty feet off, took flight in a panic at Peridot’s extended shriek of horror.

“I think I actually sort of like this planet a little more, now,” Lapis said.

“This is the _worst place in the entire galaxy,”_ Peridot mumbled, her face planted in the sand. 

“You might not want to do that,” Garnet said.  “Sand fleas exist.”

“…I hate you all so much.”

* * *

 

The rest of the day went on more normally, with the Crystal Gems, plus one former and one current prisoner, going for a stroll on the boardwalk as soon as Greg brought them back to the beach house with the shingles and Steven’s secret present.  Peridot had fallen into a sullen silence after having the yoga mat removed from her person and being permitted the use of her legs, and Lapis kept having hysterics every time they passed a hot dog stand, and then composing herself and refusing to tell Steven why.

Eventually, Steven went up to Amethyst, tapped her on the shoulder, and whispered, _“Did someone tell Lapis that hot dogs look like, you know, bananas?”_ loudly enough for Garnet to hear.  Amethyst and Lapis both almost lost it, while Pearl huffed, turned eggshell-blue and apologized to the hot-dog vendor.

“Really,” she said to them, “I don’t think we can take you two anywhere!”

“Aww, you can take us everywhere, P.”  Amethyst shook an exposed shoulder at her.  “We’re the Hot Train to Hotville!”

Lapis stopped laughing.  “The what to where?”

“Never mind,” Pearl said, and clamped a hand over Amethyst’s mouth when she grinned evilly.

A few people stared at Peridot, and when they stopped by the Fry Shack, Mr. Fryman’s eyebrows almost met his hairline at the sight of the chained-up, scowling green Gem.  “So, uh, I understand Pee Dee went to a beach party last night, and there was a monster…”

“It was a giant robot, and we got it handled, Fryman,” Amethyst said, leaning over the counter.  “Where my bits at?”

Lapis almost collapsed against the side of the Fry Shack, biting her fist. 

Amethyst grinned at her, and then shrugged at the perplexed-looking Steven.  “I dunno, guy, she’s having fun.”

“Yeah, so, don’t invite my kid to any parties where there’s likely to be monsters anymore, okay,” Fryman began sternly, before he became aware that his eldest son had plastered his face to the glass window of the Fry Shack and was staring at Peridot like a devout man who’d personally witnessed a messianic ascension.  “Ronaldo!  You’re getting face prints all over the glass.”

“Daaaad…”

“Clean ‘em off later.  Also, what’s with all the chains and stuff?  This ain’t Fulsome Street.  This is a family-friendly boardwalk!”

“Apart from the rains of meteor star drills, puffer fish monsters, magically replicating G.U.Y.S figurines, and possessed mascot costumes,” Pee Dee added on his way to the deep fryer.  “Ronaldo, seriously, are you okay?”

“Peeeee Deeeee…”

“Do you need your inhaler?”

Ronaldo continued making a noise like a slowly deflating balloon.

“She’s chained up because she tried to destroy humanity.  Twice,” Garnet said.  “We’d like two fry boxes with gravy and two bags of fry bits to go, please.”

“Oh.  Well, I suppose that’s…reasonable enough.  Two deluxe gravy fries and two bags of fry bits, that’ll be $10.20.  Wait, _twice?”_

“The latest time was with giant murderous robots,” Garnet said.

Peridot scoffed loudly.  “I _told_ you, they hunted _Gems._ Organics were of no interest to them!  So it doesn’t count.”

Steven, who’d been chatting with Peedee over the counter while trying to entice Lapis to share some fry bits, paused and looked around.  “Did you guys just hear something?”

The Crystal Gems went very still.  Garnet remained statue-like until Mr. Fryman cleared his throat meaningfully.  She put the twenty she’d been holding just over his open hand into his palm, muttered “Keep the change,” and then stood stock-still, listening.

“Steven,” Peridot said.  “I don’t hear anything.  Your tiny juvenile human ears must be malfunctioning _ow!”_ She glared at Lapis, who’d stepped on her foot and dug her heel in.

“I _do_ hear something, like a grinding noise,” Pearl said slowly, “but…that can’t be right.”

“Maybe it’s a monster,” Garnet said.  “That’d be kind of a relief.”

“It’s coming from up by the old warehouse, close to the scrap yard!” Amethyst shouted.  “Come onnn, this doesn’t sound like normal Gem monster stuff!”  She grabbed Pearl by the wrist and tore off down the boardwalk.  Garnet, in hot pursuit, yanked Peridot off her feet and dragged her yelping by her chain along the beachfront behind her, like a recalcitrant Chihuahua.

Steven handed Lapis the cheap cardboard box.  “Lapis, can you fly over and see what’s up?  And bring the gravy fries, please?  I’m gonna catch up to them!”  He darted off after the Crystal Gems.

“Steven…!  O-okay.”  Lapis looked down at the box dubiously, and then spread her wings and took off right under the astonished eyes of the Fryman family.

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Ronaldo was still having mild hysterics and trying to upload a photo of Lapis’ blurring figure to his blog (“It’s a _shape-shifting reptilian water demon,_ close cousin to the Loch Ness monster, I _knew_ we had a cryptid infestation, I knew it!  Unless it’s a Deep One.  Hey, Peedee, did she look like a Deep One to you?  Ohhh, I can’t believe it, _the invasion is actually happening,_ why didn’t you _tell_ me your monster party had _actual aliens at it?_ ”) while his father cleaned the counter and the window and sighed loudly.

“You know, boys, your mom might have had the right idea, moving to Empire City.  _Normal Gem monster stuff,_ like, it’s a nice town, mostly standup people around here, and Steven’s a nice kid, but sometimes I don’t know, those sisters of his…or moms or whatever they are…”

Peedee took his hat off.  “Dad, I need to use the phone for a minute.”

“Okay, son, you go ahead.  Ronaldo and I have this under control— _Ronaldo,_ you can help me on the fryer while your photo uploads or downloads or whatever!”

Peedee went into the back room, dug out this year’s school directory, and searched the class lists of the years below him until he found what he needed.  He dialled the number, a determined look on his face.  “Hello, Mrs. Maheswaran?  Sorry, Dr. Maheswaran.  My name’s Peedee Fryman, I’m a classmate of Connie’s.  Yeah, I, uh, missed school today, and I was wondering if she could fill me in on what the teacher assigned for homework…okay, thanks, I’ll wait.” 

He stood by the phone, twiddling the cord and wondering if he was making the right call.  If _he’d_ been in trouble, he’d probably want somebody to call his dad or Ronaldo—okay, maybe not Ronaldo, Ronaldo was usually the one who needed _his_ potatoes pulled out of the fire—but he knew Mr. Universe, who was a nice man and had absolutely no magical powers whatsoever besides some pretty cool guitar riffs.  Whereas, while he didn’t know her _very_ well, Peedee had seen Steven’s friend Connie running around town with a _really big_ very magical-looking pink sword one time, and a less magical but very real-looking sword in a sheath on multiple other occasions.  He’d mentioned it to Ronaldo, who’d dismissed it as her doing cosplay.  And the previous night, at the beach, instead of running away from the killer robot, she’d tried to run _towards_ it…

“Hey, uh, Connie Maheswaran, right?  It’s Peedee Fryman.  Um.  Yeah, I’m in Mrs. Wu’s class, that’s how I got your number.  I know you guys sometimes deal with, like, weird monster stuff.  Yeah.  No, I didn’t tell your mom, but I think Steven could probably use some help.  No, he’s okay right now, I think, but he just headed for the scrap yard and his tall mom said something about giant killer robots…okay you’re welcome no problem good…bye.”  Peedee lifted the rapidly beeping phone from his ear.  He didn’t think he’d ever had anyone thank him that profusely at that speed, or hang up on him that fast.

He put the phone back in its cradle and went back into the kitchen.  “Okay, Dad, I’m done.  Ronaldo, where’d you put the mop?  And I think you really, seriously need your inhaler.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I never thought this fic would make it to a hundred kudos, but I'm blown away by how many people have visited, never mind left kudos and uniformly positive, thoughtful, great comments. I can't thank you guys enough!


	8. Robot Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crystal Gems (and Steven!) take on the Gem Busters, Opal gets in on the action, Lapis takes a stand, and Connie comes to the rescue. Even Peridot manages to raise a finger (or five) to help.
> 
> That doesn't mean that victory comes without a cost.

“…okay, so those definitely look like a lot of Gem Buster robots.”

“Yes, Steven,” Pearl said, in that distant tone of voice that said she was seconds away from a major nervous meltdown.  “A…lot.”

“Except they don’t look like spider chickens anymore.”

“Or Roombas,” Amethyst supplied, staring from the roof of the warehouse that had formerly been the site of Beach City’s underground wrestling ring and the occasional rave party.  All five Gems (and one half-Gem) had gathered at the edge of the roof’s beach-ward slope to look down into Smiley & Smiley Scrapyards, Inc. 

There wasn’t a lot of scrap left in it, but there were a lot of Gem Buster robots.  They were industriously transforming, piecing together, soldering, and then zapping the new robots with a green ray, at which point the original builder robots would march off and the new robots would get to work on building a fresh one.

Steven peered over the warehouse roof gutter, squinting at them.  “They look like…giant enemy crabs!”  He turned to the Crystal Gems and clutched his head in horror.  “They could flatten Beach City and everyone in it like those squashed fries that are always lying around the boardwalk!”

“ _Steven,”_ Peridot said flatly, “I have told you and your _friends_ time and time again that they are _not_ programmed to hunt organic life forms.  They wouldn’t care any more about you than you would care about…those tiny things with the segmented bodies, six legs, what are they called…?”

“Ants,” Garnet supplied, watching the Gem Busters’ movements intently.  “Hm.”

“That’s right, ants,” Peridot agreed.

Steven made a sad face at her.  “I care about ants, though!”

Peridot rolled her eyes.  “Of _course_ you do, Steven.”

Lapis carefully set aside the box holding the group’s Fry Shack order and went to crouch next to Steven.  “They look much bigger than they did before…”

“How many did you count from the air?” Garnet asked her.

“I stopped after a hundred.”

“That’s a _lot_ of Gem Busters.”

“Where are they all _going,_ though?”  Pearl muttered apprehensively.  “Not towards Beach City…”

“They were headed inland,” said Lapis.  “Sort of…northeast-ish.”

“Well, that’s good…wait, no, that’s _not_ good, what are they going that way for?”

“We could follow ‘em and find out,” Amethyst suggested.

“I don’t want to take the risk of us being spotted by that mob,” Garnet said grimly.  “If they’re heading northeast, that’s mostly farmland and forest.  The worst they might do is knock over a chicken coop and smash a few mailboxes.”

“But can’t we stop them from building _more_ of each other?” Pearl protested.  “I know there’s not much scrap left, but every one of these things…” She trailed off, gesturing wordlessly; it was easy to tell the newer models, they were sleek and elegant with solid six-leg construction, thorax-mounted scanners, and extendable front-mounted claws to pierce the bodies of their victims to hold them steady for the drills.  Several of them were extending cable-mounted claws to delicately pick up small parts from the scrap stack.  Pearl shivered.

Amethyst patted her shoulder carefully.  “I know what you mean, Pearl, they’re giving me the heebie-jeebies too.”

“I have no idea what a heebie is or how you jeebie it, but this is a disaster,” Peridot growled, turning away to pull at her hair.  “And _as usual,_ I’m probably gonna be the one who gets in trouble for it!  I’ll be lucky if they don’t shove me in the Temple of the Breathing Dead for this…”

Pearl reached over to clamp a hand around Peridot’s mouth before she could go on, and then she froze and looked up at Peridot’s unchained hands.  Peridot, too, went still, and stared at her freed hands, wiggling her fingers in confusion.

Steven, who was coiling the chains that had been holding Peridot up carefully, looked solemnly at Pearl.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be chained up right now when there’s all these Gem Buster robots around!  If she’s chained up, she can’t get away from them.”

Peridot’s expression, momentarily elated and gleeful, changed instantly when Pearl shoved her spear under her nose.  “Steven, that’s…alright, we’ll do it this way for now, but _one funny move_ out of you, Peridot, and it’s the yoga mats for you again!”

Lapis delicately cleared her throat and locked eyes with Peridot, who shivered.  “That’s pretty forgiving of you, Steven.  Considering this is all her fault in the first place.”

“That’s true,” Steven agreed, “but when you cause a problem, you have to at least _help_ fix it, even if it’s too big for you to fix it alone.  Waaaait a minute…big, alone… _guys I have an idea.”_

“On a scale of one to ‘jumping in front of us to protect us from Peridot’s ship barrage’,” Garnet said, “how dangerous is it?”

Steven made a balancing gesture with one hand.  “Maybe a six?  Point…five?  And a half?”  His eyes shone suddenly.  “It maybe involves a giant woman.”

Lapis and Peridot looked blank.  The Crystal Gems exchanged loaded looks, and then turned to Steven.  “Alright,” Garnet said.  “Let’s hear it.”

* * *

 

Carrying the Fry Shack box, Steven carefully opened the gate to the scrap yard and trotted inside, holding the box against his stomach at gem level.  The Gem Busters paid him no attention at first, until he went up to one and knocked on its leg.  “Hey, guys?  Hey!  Who likes gravy?  Anyone?”

The Gem Buster “looked” down at him and scanned him.  **_“Organic life form.  Threat assessment: zero.”_**

Steven laughed nervously.  “Aheheh, you, uh, you sound a little bit like a hologram I used to know!  So, uh, let’s…see…if you mind if I…”  Steven carefully put the box of fries down and began to shin up the Gem Buster’s leg.  The green shielding tingled up him from toe to head but otherwise didn’t affect him, and by the time he’d reached the “shoulder”, the robots seemed to have gone back to completely ignoring them as they assembled another of their number.  He scrambled up and perched on the chassis.  “Wow!  You can see the whole town from here!  Whoops, right, Serious Steven.  Very very serious Steven.”  He inched over to a set of segmented plating on the Gem Buster’s chassis and started to pull it up carefully.  “This…probably won’t hurt even a little bit, just find the neural thingy and open it up and then you’ll take a nap…even robots like naps, right?  _Uhh-whoa!”_

The Gem Buster jerked up suddenly, sending Steven sprawling onto his back.  He suddenly found himself looking, upside-down, at the “face” of another Gem Buster, which was scanning him.  Its scan line suddenly turned red.  **_“Inorganic matter detected.”_**

“Uh?”  Steven looked down in horror at his shirt, which had ridden up to expose his gem when he’d fallen over.  “Oh no!”  He clawed it back down again.

**_“Threat assessment: maximum.  Terminate with extreme prejudice.”_** The Gem Buster shot out two enormous claws towards Steven.

Faster than the eye could follow, Garnet leapt from cover, snatched Steven and tucked him under her arm, grabbed the Gem Buster’s cables, and tore them out of its chassis at the roots.  Landing as the Gem Buster sparked and staggered, she bared her teeth at the rest of them.  “Alright, Plan Steven didn’t work.  Let’s use Plan Garnet this time.”

All seven remaining Gem Busters in the scrap yard, plus their half-assembled colleague, turned their attention to Garnet, their scanners lighting up red.  **_“Threat assessment: maximum.  Terminate with extreme prejudice.”_**

“That’s right, you hunks of junk,” Garnet said, walking backwards slowly.  “Come on…just a little more…”

Six more Gem Busters turned from their northeastern march and poured back into the scrap yard, as their fellows clipped across the dirt menacingly towards Garnet and Steven.

“Closer…closer… _now!”_

Opal rose from over the edge of the warehouse roof, took aim, and fired a barrage of arrows in a single shot.  The first five Gem Busters were blown to smithereens as Garnet shielded Steven from the debris with her fists.

Lapis climbed up and stood staring up at Opal.  “What a beautiful fusion…”

Opal paused and beamed at her.  “Why, thank you.  I have cute components.”  She paused and blinked.  “Did I just say that…?  Well, I guess I did!”

“Less talk,” Peridot hollered, popping up next to Lapis, “more blowing things up!”

Opal gave Peridot a decidedly unimpressed look, and then drew back for another shot.  “Garnet!”

“I see them,” Garnet hollered.  Three of the Gem Busters were down for the count, so destroyed there wasn’t much left beyond fist-sized chunks, but the other two were staggering upright, piecing each other together, while the six in the rearguard increased their pace, three of them heading for Garnet while another three aimed their cable-claws at Opal.

Steven stared at the two repairing each other.  “Are they…helping their friends?”

“It’s just a machine, Steven,” Garnet said sternly.  “They’re not really _thinking,_ and we can’t afford to think of them like we would with humans and Gems!”  She dodged a swipe from another Gem Buster’s claws, bounced off a second one, and smashed the chassis of the third, tearing out a neural transmitter as she rolled to her feet on its sparking remains.  A claw from another Gem Buster almost took her in the chest, but Steven slammed his shield up just in time, and it bounced off, sending both of them flying.

Opal, meanwhile, was gracefully dodging the Gem Buster’s cable claws, cart-wheeling, dancing, and pirouetting around the attacks.  She was caught off-guard for a moment when several of the claws changed direction in midair to follow her, but changed her tactics, leaping from the warehouse roof and firing at her attackers’ rooted bodies.  In two minutes, she’d managed to get two Gem Busters’ cables tangled up in each other and the third blasted to tiny scrap bits.

Lapis Lazuli took to the air.  Hovering over the scene as Garnet and Opal teamed up to take down the two remaining operational Gem Busters, she cried out.  “Steven!  _Garnet!_ There’s more of them coming back!”

“How many?” Garnet shouted to her.

_“Twenty!”_

“Argh!  I’m _really_ starting to…okay, Steven, shield!  If _anything_ happens, bubble yourself!  Opal, get ready!”

“Always,” Opal said, landing gracefully beside her _en pointe._

There was a faint noise from overhead, like a dopplering screech, and then Peridot was unceremoniously dropped from above, landing ungracefully next to Opal, who stared at her in confusion.  Lapis alighted next to Steven and Garnet, folding her water wings in.  “We thought we’d lend a hand.”

_“You maniac,”_ Peridot howled at her, _“you almost dropped me on my gem!”_

“It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t tried to copter away,” Lapis said.

“Rrrrrgh _you were going to drop me from five hundred feet up,_ what did you _expect?_ Anyway, I don’t know how to fight!”

Opal and Garnet both gave Peridot identical disbelieving looks, then Opal picked her up.  “You’ll be great for short-range cover.  I’ll handle the distance sniping.”

“And I’ve got short-range mayhem,” Garnet said.  “Lapis Lazuli, you’re our air support.  Steven, try to cover Opal and Peridot.”

“Got it!” Steven pulled up an extra-large shield.

Garnet enlarged her gauntlets as Peridot nervously tried to fumble out her palm-blaster.  “Get ready, everyone.”

Then the first Gem Buster to come clicking back into the scrap yard said **_“Analyzing, access real-time network memory archives, advanced mode.  Threat assessment: hyper-maximum.  All units: execute termination directive,”_** and from there everything went horribly wrong, as three of the downed Gem Busters rose up together and began to combine into an enormous mess of drills, scanners, and claws.

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Connie came into the scrap yard at a flat sprint, her sword drawn.  “ _Steven!_ Steven, Pee Dee Fryman called me and I took a taxi to get here, I…Steven?!”

She stared, her jaw dropping, at the sight of Opal wrestled bodily with an enormous Gem Buster.  The tall fusion managed to blast it in half and yank out the neural transmitter, but a stray claw sliced into her stomach.

Opal quickly disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving an exhausted, battered-looking Pearl and Amethyst struggling to get back on their feet as three other Gem Busters came clicking towards them, chiming **_“Execute termination directive”_** just out of sync with one another.

Connie looked from Pearl to Amethyst, her jaw tightening, and then she took a ready stance and charged the lead Gem Buster.  “Let’s see just how tough those _cables_ are, you big tin can!”

As she slid under the smaller Gem Buster’s belly, it scanned her idly.  **_“Organic life form.  Threat assessment: zero,”_** it said, and then carried on towards Pearl and Amethyst, before stumbling suddenly.

Connie’s first blow had sliced through the hydraulic pistons on the Gem Buster’s back right leg more from a combination of strength born of panic and sheer luck than skill; she was having to hack harder at the pistons on its other back leg, dancing back and forth as if it were a fencing opponent.

The Gem Buster she was attacking, along with its fellows, stopped and twisted this way and that, trying to scan her as she sliced away at its legs.  **_“Organic life form.  Threat assessment: ze-ze-ze threat assesszero threat assessment error threat threat threeeeat…”_**

One of them jabbed at her with its leg, experimentally; she rolled without thinking, realized too late she hadn’t protected her back—

_CLANG_

“Steven!”

“Connie!”  Steven held his ground as the Gem Buster’s leg bounced off the shield, toppling it over backwards.  “You saved Pearl and Amethyst!”

Connie rubbed her neck awkwardly.  “And then you saved me, so, haha…”

“Connie,” Steven said desperately, “I really, _really_ need my jam buddy right now!  This fight is getting _crazy!”_

All Connie’s awkwardness disappeared.  “I’ve got your back, Steven.”  She looked up and paled, yanking him aside.  “ _Ahhhh watch your back!”_

A Gem Buster clawed the ground where they’d been standing, straightened up, and swivelled towards them, and then a rolling purple shape like a buzz-saw tore it in half.  Amethyst got to her feet on the other side of the Gem Buster, arms flailing woozily, but managed to give Steven and Connie a dizzy thumbs-up.  “I’m _so_ bad, baby.  Hey, maybe since this is a fusion party, you guys should— _Pearl!”_ Her voice rose in sudden distress.

Pearl, who was still struggling to stand, looked up as the shadow of an enormous Gem Buster fell over her.  Apparently deaf to Steven, Amethyst, and Connie’s screams, she said, almost tiredly, “Oh, no, not again…”

In the thick of the fray, Garnet could be heard, distantly, roaring a name that wasn’t Pearl’s.

A giant fist made of sea water suddenly scooped up the Gem Buster up and shot it skyward.  About sixty feet in the air above the scrapyard, Lapis Lazuli, sweating and chewing on her lip with effort, formed a water bubble around the struggling Gem Buster robot, and then curled her fingers inward and squeezed her hands together.

There was a muffled crunch, as the Gem Buster appeared to cave in on itself, crushed inwards by sheer concentrated water pressure.  In the space of a few seconds, it became a ball of scrap only a few feet in diameter.

Lapis dropped it on one of its fellows and sagged, wiping her face, as she turned to check on Pearl, Amethyst, Connie, and Steven.  The latter three waved up at her, and Pearl, fighting her way to her feet, lifted her spear in a vague sort of salute.

Lapis waved back to them, her tired expression softening.  Then there was a slight _shnk_ sound and her pupils and irises suddenly contracted to pinpricks.

Connie screamed with horror as the Gem Buster whose claw had taken Lapis directly through the chest began to drag her down earthwards, the claw tines digging into her back towards her vulnerable gem.  She flapped frantically, trying to resist, as Amethyst and Pearl tried to run towards the Gem Buster, tripping and staggering.  Steven and Connie, still relatively fresh, ran full tilt ahead of them.  Steven flung his shield, yelling, “Boomeraaaang— _SHIELD!”_ at the top of his lungs.  It crunched into the Gem Buster’s scanner, smashing it.  In a hurry, Steven formed another one, as Connie pointed up.  “If we can get to the cable mounts…”

“We can stop it from reeling Lapis in!  I climbed it before!  Come on, let’s do it together!”

Panting, slipping, and catching one another as they slid down and almost fell off, the two kids managed to shin up to the chassis as Lapis was dragged closer and closer to the mounted drills.  It was slowed, only momentarily, by Pearl’s spear smashing through the hole Steven’s shield had made; it froze for half a minute, then whirred back to life and kept on dragging. 

Amethyst got her shoulder under Pearl’s arm and the two of them picked up their pace, but their path was blocked by another Gem Buster.  Amethyst made a brief attempt to shape-shift into a great horned owl, which failed miserably.  Panting, they drew their weapons.

“Got it in you to fuse again, P?” Amethyst asked, a little desperately.  “I’ll even do the dance the dumb fancy way like I haven’t got an actual butt!”

“I don’t think either of us…wait!  _Garnet,”_ Pearl cried, “Garnet, where are you?  We need Sardonyx!  Or Sugilite, or Alexandrite, or…”

A Gem Buster covered in dents went flying past them, Garnet still attached to its underbelly and smashing away at it.  A herd of Gem Busters went stampeding after her.

“Guess that’s a ‘no’, then,” Amethyst said, turning the speechless Pearl back to face their own attacker.

Steven jammed his shield into the Gem Buster’s damaged chassis to make a solid footing for himself and Connie, and then he grabbed the cable and set his feet against the damaged scanner area, dragging hard to try and slow it down as Connie hacked at the steel twists just above his head.  “Ow—metal—rope—burn—really hurts!  Lapis,” he cried, “hang in there!”

Lapis was trying to attack the cable herself, but every water-sword either splashed apart or had no effect, and her water wings were starting to come undone, chunks of them slipping away and splashing in the dirt from the air, growing smaller and smaller as her struggles weakened.

“Come on, come on…” Connie chanted, hacking away furiously, “I need _precision,_ Pearl always says precision is _key…_ ”

“Steven,” Lapis choked out as the last of her wing water dissolved in the air, “I can’t…”

“Don’t give up!  Keep fighting!  Come on, Lapis, you _have_ to—keep—fighting!”  Steven planted his sandaled feet and managed to haul back another half-meter of cable from the Gem Buster’s hydraulic innards.  “Can’t—let go—need to get that hatch open, that’s where the transmitter is…!”

“Steven,” Lapis whispered, “I’m…tired…”

Connie suddenly froze, and looked at the plate on the Gem Buster’s exposed, damaged chassis.  “ _Precision._ Steven, _hold the cable,_ I think I can stop it!”

“Okay, Connie,” Steven said desperately, “but you gotta hurry, I think Lapis is—“

There was a small implosion, a puff of clouds, and then the Gem Buster’s claws closed around Lapis’ bodiless gem and dragged it towards the drills mounted below the cable winches.

Steven leapt for the claw and tried to bubble around it, himself, and Lapis’ gem.  It worked, but it didn’t sever the cable, so the Gem Buster began smashing the bubble against its own ‘face’ and trying to dig into it with drills, tossing Steven around inside it like a rag doll.  The claws began to tighten around Lapis’ gem, and he grabbed them and fought to prise them apart.  “No no no no NO…”

“AAAAAAAHHH!”  Connie lifted her sword with a wild yell, leapt into the air, and brought it down, point-first, on the metal plate.

The Gem Buster staggered sideways and fell, smoking slightly.

Steven un-bubbled himself, pried Lapis’ gem loose from the claws, and hurried over to Connie, who was still clinging to her sword hilt with her feet planted against the metal chassis, her hair a mess of fluff and dust from the impact.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah!  …are you?”

“Yup!”

“Is…is Lapis?”

Steven looked at her gem, his expression growing pained.  “I…yes?  I think maybe?  She’ll…probably regenerate okay, I don’t see any cracks…but…”

“But that was _awful!_ What kind of _maniac_ made these things?” Connie gasped as she wrenched her sword free.  “They ought to be prosecuted under the Mumbai Convention!  That’s not a robot, that’s a torture device for Gems!”

“Um…”  As the dust cleared, the two of them turned to see Peridot, standing awkwardly with her hand blaster lifted.  Apart from a few dents, she didn’t look much the worse for the wear.

Connie jabbed a finger at her.  “I’d like to know _exactly_ who designed these rotten robots!  Was it you?!”

“No, and, you might want to duck,” Peridot said conversationally.

“What?”

Steven, a little less battered by the Gem Buster’s fall, grabbed Connie and flattened them both against the ground.  A claw whizzed over their heads and missed Peridot by a bare inch; she yelped, outraged, and started unloading blast after energy blast into the offending Gem Buster.  “How dare you attack me like I was some common criminal?  Take this!  And THIS! _Hahaha, suck laser, you sad excuse for a cobalt deposit!”_

“Wow,” Steven said to Connie, cradling Lapis’ gem protectively to his chest, “she’s really getting into this!”

By the time they’d looked up again, Peridot had brought down a second Gem Buster by freezing it, turning it upside-down, and then electro-shocking it into submission.  Amethyst and Pearl were leaning on one another atop the smoky, destroyed ruins of their Gem Buster, and Garnet was standing on an actual pile of destroyed Gem Busters, her hair slightly askew and her visor cracked in two places.  The three Crystal Gems staggered off the remains of their foes, came together, and wearily checked each other over for any signs of severe damage, gem or otherwise.  Then, as one, they started and cried, _“Steven!”_

“Right here,” Steven said, waving a free hand as he and Connie leaned on each other.  The Crystal Gems converged on them, fussing and chattering and occasionally stumbling a little from side to side as they made sure the two kids are okay.

Finally, Garnet, with a visible effort, lifted her head and looked at Peridot.  “Is that all of them?”

Peridot dispersed her blaster, pulled up her finger-screen, and squinted at it.  “All the Gem Busters in the immediate area.  There’s no sign of the other units returning to converge.”

“Oh.  Good.”

“So,” Steven said, “it’s okay for me to cry now?”  He held up Lapis Lazuli’s gem.

“Steven,” Pearl said weakly, “you did very well, her gem’s not damaged, so she’s sure to be…” She wavered suddenly, and then burst into clouds herself.

Amethyst blinked sleepily as Pearl’s gem plopped to the ground.  “P?  Oh, man,” she said, crouching down, “you must’ve had a rougher time than I…thought…” Amethyst pitched forwards, vanishing with a ‘poof’ when she hit the ground, her gem landing next to Pearl’s.

Steven looked up at Garnet with tear-filled eyes as she sank down slowly to her knees.  “Steven, it’s…it’s okay, I just need a minute to…rest and I’ll be…”  She toppled sideways, and two gems, one red, one blue, rolled out of the cloud that had once formed Garnet’s body.

Connie stared, stricken, as Steven gathered up Amethyst, Pearl, Ruby, and Sapphire’s gems, cradled them against his chest along with Lapis’, and then started to sniffle and bawl.  Connie snapped out of it enough to hug him, questions frozen in her throat.

Peridot, staring at the two of them and the five inert, formless gems, said, “Well, this is…awkward.”

Connie glared at her over Steven’s shoulder.

“I’m just _saying.”_

“We,” Connie said ferociously, “are going to the Big Donut, and we are _calling Steven’s dad,_ and you’re coming with us.  No arguments.”  She turned and guided Steven out of the scrap yard gently by the elbow.

Peridot glared after them, fists planted on her hips.  “Okay, fine, don’t _everybody_ thank me at once for helping save your rocks.  _Sheesh_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still blown away at how many kudos this is getting. Thank you guys so much!


	9. Arena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the fight with the Gem Busters, the Big Donut becomes a field hospital, Ruby and Sapphire make an appearance, and Peridot makes frenemies.
> 
> Following Lapis' regeneration, Pearl and Amethyst have a training plan, Connie tries to boost Lapis' confidence, and "Strong In The Real Way" gets a reprise.

Steven arranged all five fallen Gems on one of the Big Donut’s cleaner tables in a neat line, put his chin on his folded arms, stared at them unhappily for a while, and then rearranged them again.  “I think Ruby and Sapphire should be next to each other.”

Sadie had taken one look at the state of Connie and Steven when they’d stumbled into the store and immediately booked it into the break room and came back with a first aid kit, which she had used to bandage and disinfect both of them thoroughly.  “Lars!  Do we have any ice in the store that isn’t for Freez-Eez?  Connie’s got a goose egg and Steven’s picked up one heck of a shiner!”

“I’m looking,” Lars hollered from the back.  A minute later, he came out with a bag of plain ice, then hesitated when Steven looked up at him from the table, tired and mournful.  “Whoa.  Did you get in a fight with a blender or…?”

“Robots,” Steven said sadly.  “Lots and _lots_ of robots.”  He and Connie looked down at the line of inert Gems.

Sadie covered her hand with her mouth.  “Oh, you’re _kidding._ Steven…are those your moms and your blue friend?”

 _“What?”_ Lars dropped the bag of ice.  “They didn’t…are they like _dead_ or something?  Steven!  I’m…I’m really sorry about all the lousy things I said about all your dead magic moms!”

“Oh for gravity’s sake,” Peridot growled from the second, stickier table, where she was jabbing at her finger-screen ferociously.  “They’re _regenerating,_ they’ll probably pop back out any second now.  Numbskull.”

Lars went brick red and turned on Peridot, his chest puffing up to yell, but Sadie hustled him back behind the counter.  “Lars, why don’t you get Steven and Connie some water?  _Big_ glasses of water.”

Lars looked at the two red-eyed kids, mumbled, “Okay, yeah,” and went to work.

Sadie turned to Peridot.  “And you could stand to be a little politer, _Miss_ Whatever-Your-Name-Is.”

“Peridot,” Steven supplied.

“We’re a little new to the magical ladies game, okay?  And why are you so calm?  Steven and Connie look like they got chased by a meat grinder!  _You’ve_ barely got a scratch on you.”

Peridot looked herself over, then back down into Sadie’s outraged face.  “ _I_ was strategic.”

“Well, _I_ think you’re off to a lousy start as a magical Steven mom.” Sadie crossed her arms and turned away.  “Steven, want me to try your dad’s phone again?”

“A magical _what?”_

“Yes, please,” Steven said.  Something was set down by his hand.  He looked down to find a large mug of water, emblazoned on one side with a handwritten WORDL’S BEST MOM and on the other side with a child’s drawing of the logo of the East Coast Postal Service, along with a couple of strawberry bacon donuts.  A similar-sized mug with YOU’RE THE SUN TO MY SHINE and a logo of a smiling sun on it was set down next to Connie, along with a couple of coconut cream sprinkle donuts.  Steven looked up, teary-eyed, at Lars, who had put away the tray and taken up station behind the counter again and was trying to look nonchalant.  “Lars…”

“It’s on the house.  For, y’know, the robots.  And stuff.”  Lars blinked and looked at Sadie, who had the store phone to her ear.  “Hey, are those gonna come out of my paycheck, or yours?”

“Neither,” Sadie said, cradling the phone.  “You just make a note to corporate that they were dropped during normal business hours.  They get a little suspicious if you drop over two dozen donuts a day, but below that…hm.  Steven’s dad’s still not picking up at the car wash.  Steven, can I get your dad’s cell number?”

Connie, meanwhile, had pulled out her own phone and was texting furiously.  “I’m just…telling Mom I forgot some of my books at your place.  That’s okay?”

“That’s okay.”

Connie put her phone down and looked at the sad line of stones in front of them.  “The Gems were really brave.”  She nudged the last, bluest stone with a finger.  “Even Lapis.  I figured she’d want to run away or something.”

“Nah, she’s kind of like…”  Steven paused as a glow began to emanate from one of the gems.  “Wait, already?  That’s great!”

“What’s grea— _nyaaagh,”_ Lars yelped, half-climbing the startled Sadie, as a single gem rose into the air and began to shape a body around itself.  The two teenagers stared at it, slack-jawed, as Connie took off her lens-less glasses and squinted against the light.

“Wait…who _is_ that?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen…?”

The new arrival landed on the floor, fists balled at her sides, eyes closed, legs spread in a martial stance.  A moment later, her eyes popped open and she looked around in shock.  “Oh—oh for, come _on,_ not _again!_ I am getting so darn sick of this I could…”  She focused on Steven suddenly.  “Steven!  Hi!  Where’s…”  She grabbed her hair.  “Oh no, are you telling me _Sapphire’s not back yet?”_

“Hi Ruby!  Connie, this is Ruby,” Steven said happily to the staring Connie.  “Connie, Ruby.”

“H-hi,” Connie began.

“Hey, Connie,” Ruby said, hurrying over to the table and tenderly picking up Sapphire’s gem.  “Man, I hope this doesn’t take forever.  It’s always kinda six of one, half dozen of the other whether she’ll be out soon or…”  She became aware that she was being stared at, and turned slowly to find Sadie and Lars gaping at her with their mouths slightly open.  “What?  _What?_ I got something on my face?”

“Wow,” Sadie said, “you’re so tiny and cute!  Are you mini-Garnet?”

“No, donut kid, stay with the program.  _I’m_ Ruby,” she gestured to the gem in her own palm, “ _this_ is Sapphire,” gesturing to the blue gem in her other hand, “and together _we’re_ Garnet.  Any questions?  No?”

Lars was chortling.  “You look like you got shrunk in the dryer!”

“Lars, that’s rude!”

“Go munch a Styrofoam cup and enjoy being the tall one for the next half-hour,” Ruby growled at him, “you soon-to-be shrimp…oh!  _Oh oh oh_ hold on, hold everything,” she said, a smile blossoming on her face as the blue gem began to glow, “we have liftoff— _yes!”_ A blue gem appeared, floating gracefully in the air, and allowed herself to settle, princess-style, in Ruby’s arms.  “Hey babe!  Come here often?”  She winked and offered Sapphire a cheesy grin.

Sapphire beamed at her unashamedly and pressed their foreheads together, then paused.  “Wait.  We haven’t introduced ourselves to Connie yet.  And that entire mission was a fiasco.”

“Aw, Sapphy, no, don’t blame yourself…”

“I was reckless to predict that the robots would choose a pattern of retreat instead of trying to eliminate the threat,” Sapphire said solemnly.  “I don’t know why that was an option.  I, not Ruby, owe you an apology…Steven?”

Steven and Connie were gazing at Sapphire and Ruby with shining eyes.  Steven began to bounce in his seat.  “Sapphire can you please show Connie the Future Vision thing?”

“...no, Steven.”

Both kids drooped.  Ruby nudged Sapphire and made doe eyes at her shamelessly.  "You could show 'em the ice thing.  That'd be pretty cool.  I _like_ the ice thing."

Sapphire tilted her head.  "Well..."

Steven perked up.  “Ice thing!  Ice thing!”

Sapphire paused, and then nodded.  “Alright.  I will do the ice thing.”  She spread her fingers, and a single, perfect snowflake formed between them.

Connie squealed with excitement.  “You have ice powers!  Does that mean Ruby has fire powers?”

Ruby grinned at her.  “Wanna see me fry Lars’ hair from six feet?”

 _“No,”_ cried Sadie and Connie immediately, as Lars ducked under the counter and wailed _“Don’t fry Lars’ hair!”_ and Sapphire said, “You’re not going to fry Lars’ hair from six feet.”

“Aw, why not?”

“Because I’m going to ask you nicely not to.  Please don’t fry his hair.”

“…I can’t say no to that face.”  Ruby dipped her for a kiss, and a moment later, the two of them came up in a blaze of light, tall and shapely and unmistakeably Garnet.  As soon as her body solidified, she snapped her visor into place.  “Howdy.”

“I didn’t know you, uh, were such a cute couple,” Sadie said cheerfully.

“Just once I’d like to get through a _normal_ shift at work without something like this happening,” Lars muttered.  “At least the blue one was cool.  That tiny red chick was a holy terror!”

“E-ech,” Peridot muttered into her screen.  “Maybe fusion _is_ your best option if you’re going to be so mushy with one another.  _Stay_ fused and spare the rest of us before we all gag to death on the relationship-generated sucrose avalanche.”

Garnet loomed abruptly over Peridot’s table.  “What did you say?”

“Nothing!  Nothing at all, haha, n-nice fusion, good fusion!”

“Huh, so that was Ruby and Sapphire?”  Connie grinned.  “No wonder Garnet wasn’t interested in going out with Jamie.  They’re cute together!”

“Yup!”  Steven beamed.

“And they seem…definitely like very interesting people!”

“They’re a little challenging on their own,” Garnet said.  “Better together, all things considered.”

Lars, who was still boggling, said, “Wait a second.  Garnet’s basically like…lady alien Powertron?”He groaned and bonked his head on the counter.  “I need a drink.  Wish I was old enough to buy one…Steven, what are you smiling about?”

Steven nudged Connie.  “Lars, you said you never watched Powertron!  The magical guitar-headed robot made up of two smaller robots…”

“Steven, cut it out!”

“…who leads the Powerzoids to musical victory over the evil Boltbots!”

“I _know_ the story, I…didn’t…I said I didn’t _like_ it…much… _no Steven don’t you dare start singing the theme song…!”_

Steven began doing air guitar.  _“Power-tron, his head turns into a guitar, nah nanana nah, Power-trooon!  Inter-galactic SUPER-STAR!  POWER-TROON,”_ he and Connie belted out together, and started giggling.

“I am _definitely_ not allowed to watch that at home,” Connie admitted.  “Too much robot violence.”  She sagged against the table.  “Now I absolutely can’t ever tell my parents about this.  My life has turned _into_ robot violence.”

“Arrrgh,” Lars growled, “now it’s gonna be in my head all day, thanks a lot, Steven.”

_“…nah nanana nah, intergalactic super-star…”_

Lars squawked in outrage at Sadie, who was still trying to phone Greg while singing softly to herself and doing a little finger dance.  “Sadie, you’re _not helping!”_

“I’m not Powertron,” Garnet said, “but I _am_ an intergalactic superstar.”  She went to the table, sat down, and checked over the other gems carefully.  Sadie prodded Lars into bringing Garnet a free hot coffee (“For making fun of half of your height,” Lars admitted grudgingly), which she downed in one gulp.  As she set the cup down, Amethyst’s gem began to glow.

“Everyone’s regenerating so fast!”  Steven said eagerly.  “This is great!”

“Right on schedule,” Garnet said.  “We weren’t badly damaged, just…completely run down.  It shouldn’t take long.  None of us really need to remodel our forms to compensate for injuries, and the situation out here is more urgent than getting a wardrobe update.”

A moment later, Amethyst popped up, sat down hard on the table top, looked around, and saw Garnet.  “Aw, _man!_ I thought I was gonna be first!  I thought me and Ruby would get a chance to, you know, high-five, maybe arm-wrestle a little?”

“You can arm-wrestle me,” Garnet said calmly.

“Yeah, but you’re so _cool_ when you’re Garnet, Ruby’s more like a bro…heyy, Steven!”  Amethyst turned and pounced on him.  “That was pretty cool, huh, you two little rugrats to the rescue, gettin’ in on the action!  Hey, did you check out my _smooth moves_ with Opal, haha?”

“Yeah, you were amazing!”

“Haha, yeah…oh, you’re still here,” Amethyst said to Peridot.  “Hey, how ‘bout you use those ‘magic fingers’ and do something useful like gimme a foot massage?”

“I’d rather eat purified uranium,” Peridot said flatly.

“Cool, I _love_ purified uranium, I can get that sourced.”  Amethyst glanced down at the gem by her hand and groaned loudly.  “Aw, man, Pearl’s gonna take for-ev-er to get back in the game, isn’t she?  Just like last time… _whoa!”_

She snatched her hand away just as Pearl regenerated, perched delicately on the table, and looked around.  “Oh!  _Phew,_ everyone’s safe!  Do we have any more robots?  Is there anything we should be worried about?”

“No,” Peridot said, “I finished off _my_ share, and the rest of them are off somewhere that’s _not here_.”

Pearl pinched the bridge of her nose, sighed disgustedly, and looked at Garnet, Amethyst, Connie, and Steven.  “Oh, my.  You kids look a wreck!  Steven, maybe you should lick Connie, that bump on her head looks awful…”

“I’m not gonna lick Connie’s head, Pearl,” Steven protested, while Connie went into hysterics.

Still on the phone, Sadie perked up suddenly.  “Mr. Universe?  Hi, this is Sadie.  From the Big Donut, yeah.  Uh, listen, could you maybe come down and pick up Steven and Connie and his, um, his friends?  Yeah, all of them.  No, I think everybody’s okay—I mean, technically okay—but let’s just say that Lars and I have been having a very, uh, interestingafternoon shift…”

“Do you think he knows about the Powertron Gal-Pals?”  Lars muttered to her.

“I don’t know, you can ask him yourself,” Sadie said, hanging up.  “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

* * *

 

Greg arrived, with the van and in a mild panic, to find Steven still at the table, watching Lapis’ gem intently and waving his hand over it like a stage magician.  “Annnnd— _now!”_ Nothing happened.  He tried again.  “Annnnnd— _now!_ Aw, come on, Lapis, please?”

“Steven, she can’t hear you in there,” Pearl said patiently, collecting Connie and ushering her into the van.

Greg’s horrified eyes went from Connie to Steven to the Gems.  “You two look like bandage mummies!”

“Sorry, Mr. Universe,” Sadie called.

“No, it’s okay, I appreciate you taking care of the kids, just…wow.  Lapis got poofed again, huh?”

“ _Evvverybody_ got poofed, Gregonator,” Amethyst said, leaping into the back of the van and rummaging around.  “Got any good stuff back here?  Those bacon donuts are the good swag, but man, I’m craving _chaaaps.”_

Greg turned pale as he stared at Pearl and Garnet.  “You guys, too?!  I thought that usually happened to Amethyst!”

“There were really a _lot_ of robots,” Garnet said.

Greg sagged.  “Well…good for you for getting rid of ‘em.  At least that’s done and dusted this time.  Right?”  He looked up hopefully.  Pearl and Garnet shook their heads.  “Aw.  Nuts.  I’m sorry.”

“It can’t be helped, Greg,” Pearl said, fixing Peridot with a critical stare as Garnet shepherded Connie into the van.  “ _Some_ people’s poor judgement combined with their _flagrant_ disregard for any kind of safety protocol or systemic failsafe mechanisms was the cause of this, not anything you…”

“Nyrrrgh _will you lay off?_ No wonder the runty Amethyst can’t stand you, all you do is _pick_ at stuff!  I didn’t build the robots with no failsafe!” Peridot raged.

“No, you just deployed them,” Pearl shot back, “which makes their actions _your_ responsibility!”

“What kind of tiny-brained logic is _that?_ Might as well say you Crystal Germs are responsible for… _what are you doing?  Put me down!”_

Sadie picked Peridot up out of her seat, trotted to the door, and tossed her unceremoniously outside.  “You’re on temporary ban from the store’s interior for being an unrepentant jerk.  You’re welcome to use the patio with umbrellas, but no free Wi-Fi.  _And_ no tab, you can pay for your drinks up-front.”

“I don’t want drinks,” Peridot was raging, as Pearl and Garnet hopped into the van and shut the doors behind themselves, “and I’m sure as heck not interested in your lousy, easily-hackable “Wi-Fi”!  …Wait, where are you Gems going?”

“Back to the Temple,” Garnet said out the window.  “You know where it is, you can walk.”  She rolled up the window, silencing Peridot’s outraged protests.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Steven asked Garnet, still with Lapis’ gem clutched in his hand.

“Probably.  But I think we need a break from her for a while.  Let her sit with the fallout of everything she’s done.  I don’t foresee her running away, which is…interesting.  Not what I’d expected.”

“And for the record, P, I like you just fine,” Amethyst said to Pearl.  “Even if you do dance like you don’t have a butt.  Which, also for the record, you don’t.”

Pearl gave Amethyst a fondly exasperated look.

“Pearl,” Connie said, “I left my sword in that one robot.”

“That’s fine, Connie,” Pearl said.  “There are other swords available.  Lots and lotsand _lots_ of swords.  Which we’ll be bringing.  Next time.  So many swords.”

“Axes too?” Amethyst asked hopefully.

“Definitely.  We will very very definitely be bringing axes.”

* * *

 

Lapis’ second regeneration only took a day.   This time, Steven had been convinced that putting her in some kind of nutritious or otherwise enjoyable liquid wouldn’t make her regenerate faster, so she emerged from her gem again on the coffee table in the living room of the beach house, and didn’t fall flat on her face this time.

Amethyst, who was using Lion for a pillow and reading through a stack of comic books, raised a hand without looking up.  “Yo, Double-L.  Gimme some non-skin.”

“Amethyst?  Where’s…where’s Steven, is he okay?  Did he and Connie…?”

Amethyst lowered her comic and looked at Lapis’ drawn expression.  Feigning nonchalance, she tucked it away and got up, stretching and yawning.  “Chill, we’re all fine.  Kids’re okay, little scratched up, Garnet’s okay.  Connie’s up in the sky arena doing some training with Pearl, they’re probably overclocking it like usual.  Wanna go up and bring ‘em some pizza?”

Lapis ran her fingers over her midriff and shivered.  “That was...”

“Yeah, that was totally gory and dramatic!  I think you and Garn are tied now for ‘worst poof Steven’s seen so far’, and she got cut in _half._ Oh, wait, right, you were there.”

Lapis lowered her head.  “I remember.  I should have helped.”

“Nah, you still hated our guts then, I get it.”  Amethyst got up, wiggled her fingers, and scooped a pizza box off the table.  “Hey, you went that whole fight just now without channelling the Cheeto Puff, nice work…oh.  Shouldn’t have mentioned her, huh?”

Lapis gave a one-shouldered shrug.  “She’s bound to turn up sometime.  And she…can’t be worse than the robots.”

“Try saying _that_ again like you actually believe it,” Amethyst said, taking her by the elbow to tow her towards the warp pad.  “And hey?  Relax.  Next time you get in a staredown with Big Orange and Ugly, you’re gonna be riding with a squad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I want a better shot at kicking her butt this time.  I’m about 90% positive she’s a Kindergarten Gem like me.  I’mma show _her_ who the runt is.”

Lapis’ expression darkened for a moment, but she reached out and took Amethyst’s wrist.  “Now _you_ say that like you believe it.”

Amethyst hesitated, then shrugged.  “Meh, I’m always good for a fight.  Hey, it’s what I was made for!”

“Don’t _say_ things like that!”

Amethyst paused, startled by the sudden vehemence in Lapis’ tone.  “Whoa, whoa, cool your cucumber, Lapis Lunchmoney.  What’s up with that?”

Lapis lowered her head.  “You sound like _her_ when you say things like that.  And it’s not even true!  I don’t…even know what _anyone_ was made for anymore…”

“Man.  Homeworld messed you up too, huh?”  Amethyst shook her wrist loose, patted Lapis’ lower back unconcernedly, and offered her the box.  “They did a number on me and I’ve never even _been_ there.  N-V-M, you’re on Earth now.  They’ve got the _good_ stuff.”

“More pizza?”

“Yeah, more pizza, but seriously, give this a try.”

There was pepperoni on the fresh, hot pizza, and pineapple, and no sign of anchovies.  Lapis and Amethyst each took a slice into the warp and ate it during the trip.

* * *

 

The sky arena was clouded over and chill with mist, so that Lapis could see very little as she and Amethyst entered it and descended the staircase to the gladiatorial arena proper.  She could _hear_ plenty, though, the clash of steel on steel, and then a growl of frustration.

“Ma’am, I’ve finished this one.  Can you _please_ raise the Holo-Pearls’ level?”

“Connie,” Pearl’s voice came through the mist, “we’re going to keep the holograms on Level 2 difficulty for now.”

“But ma’am— _Pearl_ —the other day was such a mess!”

“Yes, it was, but that’s not…”  Lapis heard Pearl suck in a deep breath.  “Connie, you’re only human.  There wasn’t much more you could have done than you did.  You’re still a novice!”

“I know!  But I still feel like…like I wasn’t up to the task.” There was the clatter of a dropped sword on stone, and then the sound of bare feet slapping, pacing back and forth.  Lapis was beginning to make out Connie’s form in the mist, bare-armed and gesticulating wildly.  “Pearl, I can’t just practice on holograms forever.  I know that enemies my size can be dangerous, but with Gems and strength, it seems like it’s “go big or go home”!  What if Steven is all alone and up against something the size of one of those Gem Busters?  Or the size of—of Alexandrite?”  Connie sagged.  “What use would I be then?”

“Connie…”

Lapis’ foot scraped a stone loose, and Connie moved instantly.  “Who goes there?  Show yourself!”

Lapis stared down, cross-eyed, at a sword point an inch from her nose.  It was quickly withdrawn, and then she was looking down into Connie’s wide, worried eyes.

Amethyst shouldered through like Connie wasn’t holding up live steel and punched her affectionately in the shoulder.  “Whooo wants a Lapizza delivery?

“Oh, Amethyst!  Haha, sorry, I guess I’m still a little jittery.”  Connie laughed nervously.  “Adrenaline, probably.  Uh, Lapis, I’m glad you’re back.”

Pearl emerged from the fog to lay a hand on Connie’s shoulder, watching Lapis with an unreadable expression.  “We were just going to take a tea break,” she said, her tone courteous but cautious.  “Would you care to join us?”

“Ew, seriously, Pearl, I can’t believe you still think the best thing about Earth cuisine is _dead boiled leaves,”_ Amethyst said.

Pearl coloured slightly.  “Connie _likes_ tea, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah, but I bet she likes pizza better.  _Everyone_ except you likes pizza better.”

“ _Garnet_ likes tea…”

Lapis exchanged looks with Connie.  “I can tell I’ve been gone for a while, they’re back to bickering again.”

“Y-es and no,” Connie said.  “Why don’t I share some of the dhal my dad made with you?  We can…you know, talk.  Just the three of us.”

Lapis gave Connie a puzzled look.  “Without Steven?”

“He’s in his dad’s van having a Universe Movie Night,” Connie said, a little quietly.  “I wasn’t here last night, but the Gems said he was having…nightmares.  So he’s taking the day off with Mr. Universe and they’re doing low-key stuff with lots of popcorn.  Hey, once I’m done training, we can go out and see them!  You never know, you might like movies.”

“But why aren’t you with him?”

Connie lifted her chin a little, a gesture that unconsciously echoed Pearl.  “I take my sword training _very_ seriously.  Especially when there’s evil robots around.  And Peridot.”

“And she’s…?”

Connie deflated a bit.  “Still at the Big Donut.  Mr. Universe checked in on her this afternoon.  I guess she managed to hack their Wi-Fi after all and she hasn’t really moved since then.”

“Well, she did spend the entire trip from Homeworld to Earth glued to the ship’s consol, at least, that’s what it looked like whenever Jasper let me out of my cell.  I don’t think she moved more than two inches the entire time,” Lapis said solemnly, then paused when Connie giggled shakily.  “Um.  Was I…funny?”

“No, I guess…I never saw a Gem poofed, at least, not like that.  So…I’m glad you’re okay?”

Lapis managed a small smile down at her.  “Oh…uh, thanks.”

* * *

 

“Yes, Mother, I’m still at tennis practice?  Hm?  Oh, no, it’s going really well!  My instructor says I’ve really perfected my overhand swing!”  Connie winked at Lapis, who gave her a puzzled look.  “Yes, ma’am, I’m hydrating.  Not with Gatorade?  But…mineral replacement…oh.  Yeah, I guess the sugar content is way too high to justify drinking it.  Um, by the way, Steven called and he was wondering if…I _can?_ Really?  Wow!  Thanks so much!  Ahem, yes.  Yes, it’s definitely a separate-bag sleepover and at least one of Steven’s guardians is going to be supervising.  No, not Alexandrite.  Did you want to talk to…oh!”  Connie turned pink.  “Thanks, mom.  Yeah, I…love you too.  Mr. Universe can drive me back tomorrow morning after breakfast!  Um…goodbye!”

As Connie hung up, Amethyst snickered around a mouthful of pizza.  “So, you got official permission from Drill Sergeant Mom to stick around overnight?”

Connie coloured a bit.  “She said she trusted me.”

Pearl took a tiny sip of green tea and kept it in her mouth for a moment like a wine taster, before delicately spitting it into another, empty glass.  “Mm, it’s the perfect palate, brewed just right.  Would you care for some, Lapis?”

“Uh…yes, thank you.”

“Dead leeeaves,” Amethyst whispered.

Pearl sighed deeply.  “You’ll notice I didn’t ask _you._ I know your preferences!”

“You won’t let me put sugar in it.  Or milk, or hot sauce, so, hey, Lapis, lets talk about your crappy short-range defenses,” Amethyst said cheerfully to Lapis, who spit out her tea in shock.

 _“Amethyst!_ I was going to _gently_ ease into that particular subject!  However,” Pearl said, setting her cup down and looking Lapis in the eye, “I do think it’s something that bears discussing, perhaps not in front of Steven.  Your power is tremendous, but very unevenly applied.  I was considering initially that it was an offshoot of spending so much time as Malachite, but…”

“You got no defence,” Amethyst said.  “Like, seriously, you were just floating there, way to freak a Gem out.”

“I was a little…busy.”

“Yes,” Pearl said, “I’ve been thinking about that.”  Her gem glowed and began to project a sequence of holograms, all of them showing Lapis’ attacks.  “Your offensive capabilities follow a pattern of, how can I put this politely, tremendous overkill.  Each of them is in reaction to attackers who are at mid to long range and is designed to drive them off or incapacitate them as quickly as possible.  At close range, you either…”  She ran a brief sequence of Lapis being manhandled by Jasper, but switched them out when she saw Lapis flinch, “…freeze up, or, pardon me, choke.  You have no confidence in your hand-to-hand skills, which, with proper training…”

“…and now that you don’t hate our guts,” Amethyst supplied cheerfully, only to get squashed firmly into Pearl’s armpit.

“…could be formidably enhanced by your hydromancy!  In layman’s terms,” Pearl said, dismissing the holograms with a flick of her fingers, “nobody would ever be able to lay a hand on you again, if you didn’t wish them to.”

Lapis stared at Pearl, dazed.  “Really?”

“Yes!  And I should very much like to get my hands on the nitwit who shoved _you_ into the field with no training, although it was almost certainly to the advantage of the Crystal Gems.  Why, just look at me!  Rose Quartz _personally_ trained me in the art of swordsmanship,” Pearl added, her expression growing wistful, “and now I have the skill and confidence to train a pupil of my own, never mind handle myself in combat!”

“Just don’t do what P did when she was just a baby and go all Leeroy Jenkins in your fights, huh?” Amethyst fought her way free of Pearl’s quelling grip and smirked.  “There’s getting good and then there’s overcompensating.”

“Amethyst, I would appreciate it if you _didn’t talk about that,”_ Pearl gritted out, before composing herself.  “Ahem, what I was going to say was, I would like Connie to train you.”

Connie almost choked on the water she’d been chugging from a PVC-Free bottle.  “ _Guh—_ ngk— _ma’am?”_

“Just in beginner self-defense,” Pearl said.  “Connie has been advancing quickly and has solid grounding in using and defending against a variety of weapons.  Edged, blunt…”

Connie’s eyes were starting to sparkle.  “You trust me to teach a _Gem,_ ma’am?”

“Well, of course!  You can’t hurt her in any meaningful way,” Pearl began, then checked herself.  “What I mean is, I understand that teaching a skill can, cognitively speaking, improve your own ability.  So in training Lapis, you yourself will advance!”

Amethyst looked from Gem to human.  “So, you ladies down for it?”

“You seem awfully invested,” Pearl said, with a sly look at Amethyst.

“Yeah, well, hey, who says I don’t want a new sparring buddy?  Not that there’s anything wrong with you, P, except you keep criticizing the _line of my back…_ ”

“I do _not,_ but I’ve never met anybody else who slouches and fights at the same time…”

“Um,” Connie said carefully, “Lapis hasn’t said if she’s okay with any of this.”

Lapis was fiddling with her fingers under the eyes of Pearl, Amethyst, and Connie.  After a moment, she looked up.  “I’ll do it.  Every time I’ve tried to help Steven, or…deal with any kind of threat…I’ve been weak.  I’ve…choked.  So…teach me not to,” she said to Connie, who straightened her back and nodded.

“Let me finish my water, then we’ll get started.  I’m warning you, this is going to be very, _very_ intense!”

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Garnet appeared at the sky arena warp and joined the other two Crystal Gems in the stands.  Pearl and Amethyst looked up at her.  “Any sign of where they might have gone?”

“I haven’t found them, but the warp to Rose’s fountain was wrecked.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Pearl said, her shoulders creeping up.

“With some time, we can fix it.  For now, we’re still recovering, and they haven’t made a really aggressive move since that one followed us to the beach.”  Garnet sat down next to them and raised her visor.  “Why is Connie fighting Lapis with a stick?”

“It’s a _bokken,_ Garnet,” Pearl protested.  “A…makeshift _bokken._ ”

“It’s a stick.”

“Turns out Bob gets all flinchy around edged weapons,” Amethyst explained.

Garnet looked down into the arena, where Connie was dodging Lapis’ increasingly wild attacks with ease, rolled under a blow from a water-fist, and touched the end of her stick to the Gem’s breastbone.  “Touché!  Six-love.  Let’s try this again!”

Lapis’ water splashed to the ground and she sagged.  “Connie, I’m just not any good at this.”

Connie dropped the stick.  “No, Lapis, that’s not true!  You just haven’t learned, that’s all…look, Pearl taught me to see the sword as an extension of my body,” she said quickly, “but you’re treating the water like an extension of your mind!  It’s more like…you’re treating it the way a sculptor treats clay, and that’s great when you’re not in battle, but if you’re going to protect yourself—“

“And Steven.”

“—and Steven, _definitely,”_ Connie said, without missing a beat, “then you need to be _one_ with the water.  _Feel_ the water.  _Be_ the water!”

A number of water-clones of Lapis popped up.  “Like this?” all of them asked at once.

Connie looked around at them, her chin in her hand.  “Hmmm…it’s not a _bad_ strategy, confusing your opponent with lots of enemies, but…” She picked up her stick and lunched for a clone, which swung around and threw up its arms, and jabbed it in the chest.  “There’s still a problem.”

“How about this?” The water clones disappeared, and reformed into a single clone of Connie Maheswaran, which pointed what looked like a very real sword at the real Connie.

Connie dropped her stick and staggered a few steps back in shock.  Pearl rose, but Garnet pushed her back down again gently.  “Let them handle this.”

Lapis looked at Connie’s face, then at the clone, then dissolved it quickly.  “Oh…I’m sorry.  I didn’t think that through…”

“No, it’s okay, I’m fine, I just need to…breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth…I’m fine…”

Lapis’ hands scooped under Connie’s arms and pulled her upright.  She looked down into Connie’s face, and said, “No more water clones.  No more cheap tricks.  I’ll learn to use my own strength.”

“It’s not about strength,” Connie said, getting her feet back and straightening up, “it’s about precision and control!  You can beat brute force with control and brains any day, or at least, that’s what Pearl says.  It’s just a question of getting used to doing that up-close.  The Crystal Gems fight monsters almost every day, so they’ve had to get very, very good at that!”

Pearl preened a little, then caught Garnet and Amethyst’s looks.  “I didn’t tell her that!”  She froze as Connie picked up her stick and, very softly, began singing,

_“We can both learn how to be strong_

_In the real way_

_And I’m certain you’re truly strong_

_In the real way…”_ She took up a ready stance and beckoned Lapis, who nodded and suddenly formed her wings into a fan made of blunted blades.  Connie grinned brightly.  “That’s good!”  She lunged, and Lapis spun to meet her, gracefully.

_“And I want to inspire you,_

_So keep your eyes on me_

_And you can be_

_Whatever Steven needs of you!”_

Lapis, eyes on Connie, struck out with a sword, and Connie parried, somersaulted under it, and struck at Lapis’ ribs; before she could lay a strike, Lapis turned to meet her again, and this time a water sword knocked Connie’s stick from her hands and sent her sprawling.

Connie started to pick herself up.  “That’s _great!_ You see, there’s no limit to what you can do when you have Gem magic…”  Then she went quiet when Lapis offered her a hand, and began to sing, quietly,

_“I think we both can be strong, in the real way…”_

“Lapis?”

 _“And I think you’re already strong in the real way.  Do you remember the tower?  That strength is in your heart, even when you’re apart, you’ve got that power in you.”_ Lapis brushed Connie off gently.  “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“You were scared,” Connie said.

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

Amethyst, not looking away, wordlessly handled the sniffling Pearl a tissue.  Garnet rose and gave her a pat on the shoulder.  “You’re a good teacher.  Connie,” she called, raising her voice, “this lesson’s over.  Steven was looking for you back at the beach house, and your pizza’s getting cold.”

Connie straightened up.  “I’ll microwave it!  Just let me get my towel and my lunch box—oh man, I’m _so_ sweaty—Lapis, you’re still coming, right?  I promise, you’ll _love_ Universe Movie Night!”  Three minutes later, Connie scampered up the arena stairs towards the warp with Lapis in tow, pausing to wave to Pearl.  “We’ll be back same time tomorrow, ma’am!”

There was the distant sound of the warp pad activating after another minute.  Pearl stood up.  “Garnet, Amethyst and I will help you look for those robots.  They can’t have gone _that_ far, and if they’re tracking down warps and destroying them, we need to figure out their pattern!”

“You feeling up to it?” Garnet asked her.

Pearl drew her spear and clutched it tightly.  “Always!  Let’s do this.”

“Aww, look at you all pumped up,” Amethyst chuckled.  “Let’s go ‘bot-punching!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is no longer as heavy as it was before! I'm saving that for later. "Strong In The Real Way" is the work of Rebecca Sugar and owned by her; I make no claims of ownership and just fiddled the lyrics for a reprise.


	10. Ocean Town Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis finds a movie she likes* and gets a present from Steven. Peridot doesn't want to catch your human disease called friendship, and butts heads with Team Big Donut. Pearl and Garnet discover a disturbing pattern in the Gem Busters' behaviour. Ronaldo, finding his dreams shattered, pursues extreme measures and gets in very, very far over his head, but he still believes in Steven...
> 
> *that breaks her heart

It was pouring rain out, so Lapis and Connie left the Temple and headed straight for where Greg’s van was parked on the beach.  Lapis shaped her wings into an umbrella for them, and looked up through its shifting form at the grey sky.  “It’s amazing how much _water_ this planet has.”

“Doesn’t the Gem Homeworld have water?”

“Mostly as an imported novelty item.  Only very important Gems can afford— _could_ afford fripperies like that.”

“Oh.”  Connie reached the van door first and knocked on it.  “Steven?  Lapis is back, and Mom says I can sleep over.  We brought pizza, it’s kind of soggy but…”

The van door burst open and Steven almost knocked them both over with a catapult hug.  Lapis couldn’t help but smile as Connie patted Steven and reassured him and checked that he was alright.

Greg swung himself down and beamed at Lapis.  “Hi, gals!  Look who’s back from the, uh, gem.  You’re just in time for Universe Movie Night!”

“We have snacks,” Steven blubbered.  “And lots and lots of sleeping bags.”  He gave Lapis a tremendously sad look.  “I thought you were going to be in your gem forever and we’d have to put you in a pot like a Chia Pet!  Or a plastic aquarium like a sea monkey.”

Lapis burst out laughing.  “In a _pot?_ Steven, sometimes you don’t make any sense.”

Steven nodded solemnly.  “It’s part of my charm.  Now, are you ready…for _popcorn_?”

* * *

 

“…Steven?”

“Yes, Lapis?”

“The popcorn is stuck between my teeth again.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the kernels, not the actual corn!  Want a toothpick?”

“No, I got it out with my tongue, but…why don’t you and Connie have my share?”  Lapis handed them the bowl and snuggled back into the sleeping bag among the piles and piles of van junk.  “I think popcorn is an evil food.”

“Even with all the salt and butter?” Connie asked around a mouthful.

“I’ll just stick with the pizza.  It doesn’t try to maul your gums.”  Lapis went back to staring at the TV mounted at the back of the van.

“I tuned that up to get your message to the Gems that one time,” Greg said to her.

“And now you use it for holographic…picture shows?  It looks…wait a minute.  Did humans _really_ buy that?”  Lapis gestured to the parody PSA onscreen.  “The bomb, and hiding under the desk?  If that’s a hydrogen-based explosion, no desk is going to protect organics from that!  It’s basic chemistry!”

“Ohhh boy,” Greg said, “lemme tell you about my relatives and the ‘40s sometime…not right now, though.”

“Also, a robot that size and shape would probably fall over.”

Steven and Connie shushed Lapis and went back to watching _The Steel Giant._ Lapis abided by the rules until the very end, when both kids and Greg were all blubbering as the giant flew into space.

_“Su-per-mannn…”_

“What’s sad about this Superman?  What’s he doing— _oh,”_ said Lapis, as the Giant and the nuclear missile collided in a massive explosion.  “Oh.  I…I see.  That’s…pretty sad.”

Greg wiped his eyes while Connie and Steven intently watched the denouement where the giant’s parts began to re-assemble again from all over the world.  “Y’know, this is a little heavy?  How’s about a little light comedy, like _Shadow of the Heavy Man,_ or a little Engels Brothers?”

Steven detached from the TV and leaped on Greg’s stomach.  “Engels Brothers!  Engels Brothers!  You’ll love it, Lapis!  They’re a laugh riot!”

* * *

 

“…so…Engels brothers is a ‘no’, huh?”

“It’s very hilarious, Steven,” Lapis said, after half an hour of poker-faced silence as Groucho Engels cracked wise at an appreciative wealthy young lady with enormous curly hair.

Greg, who’d been scratching his beard as it became increasingly clear that neither Lapis nor Connie was particularly entertained, suddenly sat up.  “Oh, wait, wait, lightbulb moment!  I’ve got something that’s just _perfect._ You’ll love it!”

Lapis looked resigned.  “Okay.  Um.  Sure, let’s try it out.”

* * *

 

_“…ding dong, the witch is dead!  Which old witch?  The wicked witch!  Ding dong…”_

“This is _so weird,”_ Lapis whispered to Steven.  “But I can’t stop watching!  Why are all those little people candy-coloured?  And where did that green woman’s feet go?”

“Magic,” Steven said happily.

“I always felt kind of bad for the witch,” Connie confessed.  “I mean, was she really _wicked,_ or was she just made a scapegoat by the wizard, who’s a…”

“Shhh Connie, spoilers!”

* * *

 

“Ahh, it’s been ages since I watched this,” Greg said happily, a chip bag in his lap.  “I used to crack Steven’s mom up by doing this impression of the Scarecrow, she loved it.  He was my favourite.  It’s a good show!”

“What about the Tin Man?”  Steven cradled the remote.  “He’s so sensitive and caring, yet oblivious that he’s already in possession of the heart he yearns for!”

“Aw, yeah, I remember you loved him a lot, and the little dog, too!”

“I’m still pulling for the wicked witches,” Connie said firmly.  “I think they’ve been maligned.  I’m calling death of the author on this one.”

“Doesn’t anybody like poor old Dorothy?” Greg asked with a chuckle.  “She’s been on a pretty rough ride!”

In the ensuing silence, Lapis raised her hand.

“…yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

* * *

 

_“…and you’re all here.  And I’m not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all, and—oh Auntie Em—there’s no place like home!”_

“Wow,” Greg said, “I forgot how short the ending credits were in these old movies.  Nowadays you have to sit through ten minutes of credits for everybody from the director to the guy or gal who fixed the photocopier!”

The sound of gentle snoring made him turn.  Steven and Connie were both curled up in their sleeping bags, nestled together with a half-empty bowl of cold popcorn tucked between them. 

Greg smiled warmly, covered them both with a blanket, and then rolled himself in his own bag.  “Well, I guess that’s it for us chickens.  Hey, Lapis, you want to hang out here or go back to the temple?  I know not all Gems are big fans of,” he yawned, “of sleeping.”

“I’ll just stay here, thanks, Greg,” Lapis said quietly, her knees pulled up against her chest.  She was staring out the van’s front window, where rain was still pounding down against the roof and the glass.

“Just holler if you need anything,” Greg said, and fell fast asleep within a few minutes.

An hour later, he half-woke to the faint sound of someone sobbing; after turning, groggily, to check that it wasn’t Steven or Connie, he sat up and squinted into the dark.

“Uh…Lapis?”

“I’m fine, Greg.”

She sounded normal enough.  Greg bedded down on top of his somewhat lumpy junk pile, removed the waffle iron that was poking him in the ribs, and went right back to sleep again.

* * *

 

“Hi, Sadie!  Today I’m not here for donuts, I’m just here to check in and see how your,” Steven leaned on the counter and winked, “new favourite customer is doing?”

Before Sadie could speak, Lars came out of the back room with a large box that had FREE TO A GOOD HOME scrawled on it.  He caught sight of Steven and set it down.  “Thank you sweet tap-dancing Freddy Mercury!  Steven, I’m begging you, take her _back with you!”_

“Uh…is she making trouble for you guys?  Trying to take over the donut shop with tiny robots?  Creating a hostile work environment by cackling about wanting to destroy all humans?” Steven demanded, increasingly distressed.

“She’s just out there hogging our bandwidth and being kind of a sass lump,” Sadie said.  She gave Lars a faint smile.  “ _Someone’s_ been butting heads with her.”

“I really, _really_ want to find a high cliff and throw her off it, except she’d probably come right back here, sit at the patio, _abuse the customer Wi-Fi,_ and keep ordering complicated drinks with flavour shots that I’m pretty sure she’s paying for with stolen e-transfers!  And she’s _such_ a _jerk!”_

“Um, yeah, she is being pretty harsh, but you’re giving back as good as you get.  It looks like.  Ronaldo likes her,” Sadie offered.  “I don’t think she’s exactly…awful, either, you just need to make sure she knows where you stand with her.”

“Where you _stand_ with her?Sadie, she’s an evil little green alien nerd who doesn’t need to eat or drink or breathe or ingest _nearly_ as much coffee as she does…!” Lars howled after Sadie as she went outside with a tray.  Beyond the glass, Peridot was visible at a patio table, pecking away at her finger-screen with a look of uncharacteristic awe on her face.

“Here’s your cappuccino-macchiato mint-salted-caramel latte with chocolate sprinkles, and that’ll be eight dollars, please.”

Peridot pulled up a secondary screen and typed something in, her eyes not leaving the screen.  “Thank you, Sadie human.  The currency will appear in your conglomerate’s coffers immediately, courtesy of the ‘offshore’ accounts of Silverman Bags Incorporated.”

Sadie met Lars’ eyes through the window and gave a slightly nervous laugh.  “So, found something interesting on the internet, huh?  Something as good as memes?”

“I admit those were entertaining,” Peridot said, “and if there’s anything in human culture worth preserving, it’s probably MemeAwareness.com.  By the way, given the Lars human’s desperate desire for you to traumatically inseminate him…”

Sadie turned brick red.  “His desperate desire to _what_?”

“…I found some instructive videos on Earth reproduction, in preparation for your,” Peridot shuddered, “inevitable mating season.  There’s a few cosmetic differences, but I think the essentials are similar.  I’d appreciate you confirming it.”

Sadie, who was obviously at boiling point, made herself look at the screen.  After a minute, she said, “Peridot, those are snails.”

“Huh?  Then what about these?”

“Those are _bedbugs!_ And humans don’t have a mating season, and…Steven’s just standing there inside listening to this!  Don’t talk about that stuff in front of him!”

“Oh.  Um.  Okay?  Your social mores are weird.”

“And I’m not traumatically inseminating _anyone.”_ Sadie grimly packed up the tray and started to march back inside, fuming.

“So you say,” Peridot muttered.  “I’m going back to watching platypus videos.”  She looked up at a distant cry.  “Oh.  Here he comes.  Again.”

“Hey, Ronaldo,” cried Sadie, abnormally perky at the new distraction, “how’s it going, heh heh?”

“Oh, it’s going, Sadie,” Ronaldo said, trotting over in full camo gear and planting himself at Peridot’s table.  “It’s going _deep._ So.  We meet again, _Peridot,_ if that is your… _true_ name.”

“We went over this yesterday,” Peridot said, dissolving the screen and staring at Ronaldo.  “Yes.  _Yes_ , it is.”

“I have further questions for you about the operations of your…species.  In return, I will teach you something no other being on this world is aware of, or capable of withstanding.”

Peridot blinked, then leaned across the table.  “I’m listening.”

“To be blunt, in return for all the details on the Great Diamond Authority and its interest in the Earth, I will teach you…my _psychic ghost powers,_ carefully honed through meditation and immersion in the dark realm…of…”  Ronaldo petered off, stymied, when Peridot burst into hysterical laughter.

“Are you _kidding_ me?  Humans don’t _have_ ‘psychic ghost powers’, and seriously, _Ronaldo,_ if you think I’d tell you about my mission, you’re missing a circuit somewhere.  You’d stick it up on your human internet.  Not…that you humans aren’t amazingly good at coming up with the most _ridiculous_ stuff, so probably nobody would notice anyway, but…”  Peridot stopped, staring at Ronaldo’s quivering lower lip.  “What?”

“You…you hacked the NSA’s secret database for me yesterday…I thought we _had_ something…like Sculder and Mully…”

“Oh, please, that was just for laughs.  I can’t believe you got so excited.  All the Gem stuff in there was just junk!  I mean, they had what was basically Gem drug paraphernalia listed as a deadly weapon.” Peridot grinned to herself.  “Humans really are _totally_ ridiculous!”

“But _I’m not,”_ Ronaldo yelled, lurching to his feet and knocking the bench over, his eyes squeezed shut.  “I’m…I’m _enlightened!”_

Peridot stared at him for a minute or two, and then said, “No, you’re delusional.  No wonder none of the other humans like you.”

Under Sadie’s horrified gaze, Ronaldo started to shake and tear up.  Then he forced himself back into determination mode.  “You _would_ say that!  You just want to discourage me from uncovering your massive global invasion conspiracy!”

“Uh…yeah?  And…no?  Really, you’re one kind of pathetic human who’s made mostly out of blubber and bad ideas, what are _you_ going to do about anything?”

 _“Make a difference,”_ Ronaldo growled, then dashed away his tears, shoved his hat back onto his head, and stalked off.  About ten meters away, he turned and bellowed, _“I’ll show you!”_ and then ran down the boardwalk, sobbing.

Steven, a few seconds too late, had dashed outside.  “Ronaldo!” he called after the retreating teenager.  “Ronaldo, wait, she didn’t mean it that way!”  He turned to Peridot and glared at her.  “That was _really_ mean, Peridot!  Wasn’t it, Lars,” he demanded, as Lars slouched outside after him.

Caught unawares, Lars looked away.  “Um…yeah, look, I mean, Ronaldo’s…a mess, but that was pretty harsh…”

“I thought you were desperate to disassociate from him in case his lousy social stature affected yours,” Peridot said, turning back to her screen.  A second later, she screeched when her fingers were snatched out of the air.

Sadie glared across the table at her and folded her arms.  “I’m banning you from the Big Donut.”

“You did that already…” Peridot began, shrinking.

“I’ve had it with your lousy attitude and your treating people badly, especially people I…I care about!  I’m banning you from the _entire premises,_ including the patio, _permanently._ Stick that in your…your rotten finger-screen and poke it.”  Pink around the cheeks, Sadie threw Peridot’s fingers back at her, grabbed the stunned Lars, and steered him back into the store, slamming the door behind her.

Peridot and Steven stared at the door.  A moment later, Sadie stuck her head out again.  “Steven, you’re not banned, you can come back any time you’d like, just, Peridot’s disinvited.”

They remained frozen until Sadie opened the door a third time.  “And Peridot, if you’re still here after I’ve counted to ten, I’m coming after you with a mop!”

Steven took the stunned Peridot and led her away solemnly by the arm, down the boardwalk.  “You don’t want to see what she can do with a mop.  Not even Gem monsters stand a chance against Sadie’s mop-hand.”

“Fine,” Peridot muttered after a while, “I didn’t want to stay there _anyway._ Their caffeinated beverages were sub-par and their so-called internet only gets 3 GB per second, with some toggling.  Lousy Big Donut.”

“…if you’re sad you had to leave, you could apologize to Ronaldo, and maybe start being nicer to Sadie and Lars?”

Peridot froze and glared down at Steven, jerking her arm free of his hand.  “Why?!  _I’m_ right, _he’s_ wrong, _I’m_ the superior being here and that’s all there is to it!”  She crossed her arms.  “Let’s just get back to the Temple.  Even those property-destroying Crystal Germs are better than dealing with humans and their…their _hormones.”_

Steven stared up at her sadly, and trailed after her towards the Temple.

* * *

 

Peridot stomped off to sulk on the shady side of the deck, which left Steven at loose ends.  He wandered around the edge of the beach cliffs and stopped dead.  “Oh, hey guys!  Amethyst, did you find anything?”

Amethyst, Connie, and Lapis Lazuli all looked up at Steven.  “Yo, Steve-o, how’d your donut run go?  Ya bring me anything?”

“I brought back Peridot.”

“…well I can’t eat _that…_ probably…”

“Sadie perma-banned her from the Big Donut because she was mean to Ronaldo,” Steven said with an unhappy shrug.  “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Aw, Steven,” Amethyst said, ambling over to pat his shoulder, “you can’t ‘fix’ every jerk who lands Earthside.  Hey, want to see a cool trick?”

“Yeah, but…if you’re back, where’d Garnet and Pearl go?”

“They’re in the Temple stressing super-hard and trying to find a pattern in all the warp pads that the Gem Busters have, well, busted.  That’s not my thing.  So, cool trick?”

Steven nodded cautiously, and went over to perch on a rock with Connie.

Amethyst gestured to Lapis.  “You’re on, Double-L.”

Lapis extended her arms and brought them down to shoulder-height with her fists pointed upward.  A pair of comically huge, old-fashioned boxing gloves formed over her hands.

Amethyst turned into a spherical ball.  “Now here’s the best part…”

“You’re sure this is okay?” Lapis asked Amethyst, who cackled at her and started chanting “Do it, do it, DO IT” until Lapis relented and gave her a hesitant jab.

Amethyst went flying down the beach with a yell of “Wooooo-hoooo!” before landing about five hundred yards away in a cloud of sand.

“She’s learning to make her own weapons,” Connie said proudly to Steven.  “You see, Lapis?  You’re really adaptable!  You’re good at this!”

Lapis turned to her, beaming, only to get pounced on and hugged by Steven.  “Connie, you taught her that?  You are both soooo cool!  You know what we should do while Garnet and Pearl are doing strategy stuff?  We should go see…the Dog Copter movie!”

Connie’s jaw dropped.  “But, Steven, it’s been out of theatres for months…”

“It’s playing special this week only, in 3-D,” Steven said excitedly as Amethyst came stumping back up the beach towards them.

Connie squealed with excitement.  “I wanna go, I wanna go!”

Amethyst cocked her head.  “Is this the one where the dog shoots missiles out of his butt?  I’m game.”

“What do you say, Lapis,” Steven said, turning to her with shining eyes.  “Lion could carry us, or you could fly us there, and you could probably get a student discount even if you are eight thousand years old…”

“Nine thousand,” Lapis corrected him absently.  “Um…maybe check with Pearl and Garnet first?  But, sure.  I’d…I’d like that.”

“Great!  Annnnd, when we were in town the other day to get that stuff for the roof…” Steven rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a little plastic globe.  “I got you a present!”

“Uh…thanks?  Steven, what is it?”

“It’s a rare limited-edition Sea Explorer Gal!  See, she’s got blue hair, like you!  I mean, you don’t have the red trenchcoat, or the pipe, or the big pirate hat, but…maybe someday!” Steven wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Lapis, struck speechless, stared down at the tiny figurine, then looked down and smiled.  “Thank you, Steven!  I really love it.”

Steven did a tiny little dance of glee and grabbed her hand, then Connie’s.  “Come on, let’s go ask Garnet and Pearl about Movie Day!”

* * *

 

As Steven’s little party came back into the beach house, Garnet and Pearl were staring grimly down at a map of interconnected circles.

“…can’t see any sort of logical pattern…maybe if we superimpose it on something, like a projector slide…”

“They’ve destroyed four more warp pads, and yet every time we’ve arrived at a warp pad before they can destroy it, they haven’t engaged us in combat.  In fact, they’ve fled,” Garnet said.  “We know they’re able to fight us, but they don’t seem to be trying, yet.  I don’t like this.”

“Uhh, hi, Garnet, Pearl…is this a bad time for Dog Copter?”

“It’s the worst time for Dog Copter, Steven,” Garnet said.

Steven drooped a little.  “Aww.”  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out; it was playing the Z-Files theme song.  “Huh.  Hi, Ronaldo?  Is that you?  Uh.  You’re kind of breaking up…say that again?”

Peridot wandered in, skirted Amethyst, and eyed the paper.  “Oh, don’t tell me you guys still use _analogue?_ Ick.”

“If you haven’t got anything better to do with yourself,” Pearl snapped, “maybe you should go scare seagulls!”

“ _Fine,_ like I wanted to spend any time around y—wait a minute.”  Peridot turned back and stared.  “Is that Earth’s warp map?”  When Garnet pulled it up defensively, she rolled her eyes.  “I _have_ the map system on _file_ already, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.  Why are so many of the warps X’d out?”

“Gem Busters have been destroying them,” Garnet said.

Peridot approached, her expression changing.  “Huh.  That’s…not good.”

“What are you saying?”

“Well, it’s like this.  The Gem Buster system is designed so that if the primary robot takes damage from the target, the secondary robot is designed to sequester itself, stalk its target, analyze its movements, and then strike at the correct time.  But the flask robonoid nanite system operates on a different protocol.  It uses a crystalline-swarm construction, aimed at minimizing damage to all units until victory over the threat is assured.”

“Oh,” Pearl said.  “Oh, no.”

“What’s wrong, Pearl?” Amethyst asked.

“She’s saying that these robots are…trying to, essentially, herd us into a position where they’ll be assured of cornering us and destroying us in one strike.”  Pearl’s eyes darted to the map.  “I can see one of two ways that plays out…either they destroy all warps except the one closest to their, their “nest”, and then beam into the Temple warp from there…”

“Technically inadvisable, since they’re too big to fit more than one at a time in the warp,” Peridot said.

“…or they’re destroying all the warps so that…when they attack the Temple…”

“…we’ll be cut off from any of our usual escape routes,” Garnet finished.  “This is very, very bad.”

“You mean a giant swarm of robots is gonna trample Beach City flat and then smash us to itty-bitty shards?  Yeah, that’s bad.”

“They won’t target humans,” Peridot said, but even she sounded more than a little dubious.

“No, but they won’t exactly go out of their way to avoid them, either,” Garnet said.  “The opportunity for human collateral damage is immense, never mind how many of them we’ll have to fight…”

“Guys,” Steven said, _“guys!”_

All the Gems turned to look at him.

“You’d better listen to this, I think Ronaldo’s in trouble!  Ronaldo, I’m putting you on speaker phone, talk to the Crystal Gems!”

 _“…is that them?  Oh, thank you, thank you!”_ Ronaldo’s voice was an urgent, panicked whisper.  _“Listen, I was following a lead south of Ocean Town that I’d read about on the blogosphere, about a cryptid that some were erroneously referring to as a ‘sasquatch’…”_

“Ronaldo, get to the point,” Garnet said sternly.

 _“…I wanted to prove…anyway, it doesn’t matter!  I_ found _what I was looking for, but now it’s…”_ Ronaldo whimpered, _“it’s **hunting** me!  I can hear its horrible breathing…tell my dad and my brother I love them, tell them that I died as I lived, seeking the really truthy kind of truth, and that I want to be buried in my Loch Ness Blogster costume, and I want the funeral march to be the second “Go Go Koala Princess OAV” ending title, ‘Wagamama no Hi’.  Got it?  Ahhhhh!  The orange…THE ORANGE!!”  _The phone went dead.

“Ronaldo!”  Steven shook the phone.  “Ronaldo!!”

“And now we have another problem,” Garnet said.

“Wow,” Amethyst said, “today just _really_ sucks Dog Copter missiles.”

There was a tiny clatter of plastic on wood.  Lapis had dropped the Sea Explorer Gal toy ball, her face a mask of terror. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't nearly as creative with SU's movie titles as I was with the books. Let's assume that all of it was, in fact, made in Kansas!


	11. Sharper Sticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie come to the rescue, Lars and Ronaldo resolve their difference to try to defend Peridot from her vengeful ex-boss, Sadie gets to use her stick again, Greg Universe rocks out, and the Crystal Gems always save the day.
> 
> Meanwhile, Jasper is rapidly losing touch with reality (and sanity), and Lapis Lazuli offers a shocking solution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I am keeping the rating but, for any younger readers or those with triggers, the canon-typical violence in this chapter is somewhat upped as the opponent is no longer a robot. Also, THIS is where we get heavy. Heavier. It's still SU, yours truly has a Goofy Quotient to fill.

“Alright,” Pearl said, “we need to act quickly.  Garnet, Amethyst, I’ll take point and draw Jasper’s attacks.  If she’s still injured from her fight with Lapis, she may be disoriented.  _I_ can keep her occupied until you have the opportunity to flank her and strike!”

“That won’t work if she’s regenerated,” Garnet said.  “She’ll be fully in possession of her powers _and_ her knowledge of ground combat.  She’ll realize quickly that she’s being drawn out.”

“Not if I go with Pearl,” Lapis said.

The three Crystal Gems stared at her.  Amethyst cleared her throat.  “You, uh, sure you’re ready for the firing line, Double-L?”

“If you want something to distract Jasper, I’m it,” Lapis said, her jaw set.  “I promise you, she won’t notice you planning to get the drop on her if I get…get her focused on me.”

Garnet studied Lapis critically for a moment.  “Alright.  If anything happens, get airborne as fast as you can and take Pearl with you.  We can’t afford to have you both go down,” she added when Pearl gave her an injured look.  “If Jasper manages to defeat me, or Amethyst, the remaining Gem is going to need backup fast.”

Pearl straightened up.  “Understood.  Now—Peridot.”

Peridot looked up from the kitchen counter.  “What?  You’re not seriously expecting _me_ to go up against Jasper?  I refuse!  She’d tear me limb from limb and beat me to sand with my own arms if she found out I’d been helping _you.”_

“For a given value of ‘help’,” Garnet said.

“Watching her slapfight Connie and lose was pretty hilarious, so I guess you could say she’s been helpful,” Amethyst said cheerfully.  “And by helpful I mean a laugh riot.”

“ _As_ I was saying,” Pearl snapped, and turned back to the fuming Peridot, “we don’t expect you to fight, of course.  It’s not precisely your forte.”

“ _Thank_ you.  I mean, wait a minute!  Are _you_ saying _I’m_ weak?!”

“I’m saying you might be more… _valuable_ as a scout,” Pearl said.  “You can patrol the north and north-east borders of Beach City, along the cliffs, and contact us if you spot any abnormal activity, be it Gem Busters or any other, uh, issues.”

Peridot scratched her chin.  “We-ell…I suppose…wait a minute!  How am I supposed to contact you?”

“I’m glad you asked!”  Pearl turned away, pranced through the Temple door to her room, and reappeared thirty seconds later, coming from the Burning Room with a bubbled plug robonoid held between her hands.  “I’ll return one of your little friends to you and you can send it to us.  I’m sure you can figure out a way!”

Peridot took the plug robonoid bubble.  It popped in her hands, and she examined the robonoid as it extended its tiny legs and wiggled them at her.  “Hmm…I _could_ jury-rig something appropriate, perhaps a limited flight capacity…”

“Awww, look at its cute little legs,” Steven said happily as he passed by with a fully loaded cheeseburger backpack.  “I’m gonna name it Bob Junior!”

“Its name is not _Bob Junior,_ Steven,” Peridot snapped at him.  “It doesn’t _have_ a name.  It’s a _robot.”_

“You have so little faith in Bob Junior!”

“Steven,” Garnet broke in, “why do you have your backpack?”

“Because…me and Connie are coming with you guys…?  To help save Ronaldo…?”

All five Gems looked at one another, then down at Steven.  Pearl began, “Um, Steven, you know we trust you and you’re a very strong asset to the Crystal Gems…”

“But Jasper is _extremely_ dangerous,” Garnet said.

“And she’s like pretty much invulnerable, we kinda don’t want you anywhere near that,” Amethyst added.

“Plus, she’s fixated on Rose Quartz, and you have her gem,” Peridot pointed out.  “She’ll drop everything to get to you and deal with you, which, I’d like to note, is _exactly what got me into this mess in the first place.”_ Peridot managed to compose herself with a visible effort.  “So she’s not exactly going to be _logical,_ Steven.”

“That’s an understatement,” Lapis said.  “She’s obsessed with Rose…and now by extension with you.”  Her expression darkened.  “So I’m— _we’re_ not letting her get anywhere near you.”

“I brought my sword,” Connie protested.

“Then stay here and use it to protect Steven,” Garnet said.  “End of discussion,” she added as both kids started protesting.  “We need to be quick if we’re going to find Jasper and save your friend Ronaldo, and there’s no warp pad near Ocean Town.  Gems, _move out.”_

As the Crystal Gems took off, running down the stairs and north along the beach with Lapis flying overhead, Peridot followed them out to the deck and called after them, “Um, listen…!”

Amethyst looked over her shoulder and hollered back, _“What?”_

“I…oh never mind,” Peridot muttered.

Steven and Connie followed her outside, dispirited, and watched the Gems vanish from sight.  Steven glanced up at Peridot.  “Were you going to ask them to tell Ronaldo you were sorry?”

 _“No,”_ Peridot said bitterly.  “Now if you’ll excuse me.”  She turned her finger-copter on, rose, and buzzed off through the air, the plug robonoid cradled in her free arm.

Connie and Steven stared after her for a moment, then looked at one another.

“Lion?”

“Lion.”

* * *

 

“…no, Dad, everything’s okay, we’re just trying to save Ronaldo from a rogue Gem.  Y-es?  It’s okay, Dad, we’re being careful!  Everything’s going to be fine!  We’ll just grab Ronaldo and get out of there.  Oh—seriously?”  Steven looked at Connie as Lion went bounding through the pink rush of portal-space.  “Dad says Ronaldo’s still live-Twitting, which is good, because you can’t live-Twit if you’re dead.”

“I can’t believe that you can still get cell phone reception when we’re in a different dimension!  Mine dies when I go more than half a mile out of town.”

“I think it might be another Lion thing that he doesn’t tell me about… _whoa!”_

Lion bounced through a portal and came to a halt, causing both kids to fly over his mane and land on something soft, squashy, and dressed in camouflage.

 _“Ow!_ What… _Steven?”_

“Ronaldo!” Steven immediately sat up.  “You’re okay!”

“You’re squashing my stomach!”

“Oh, sorry.”  Steven and Connie climbed off Ronaldo, allowing him to get to his feet unsteadily.  The three of them were in the middle of a tall, close-grown pine forest, overrun with strange vines. “Ronaldo, Jasper didn’t get you!”

“What’s a Jasper… _oh,_ you mean the hot yet terrifying sasquatch lady!  Naw, I haven’t seen her in like, fifteen minutes, but I _did_ find some extremely suspicious…uh, who’s your friend?”  He offered Connie a hand.  “Ronaldo Fryman, nice to meet you, you might know me from my prominent local blog, Keep Beach City Weird!”

“I’m Connie, I’m from out of town,” Connie said.

“Hm.  Nice sword.  Did you get it online?  At a convention?”

“Um…Pearl gave it to me.”

“Ohhh, no way, it’s _real?_ I thought you needed a permit for that…”

“Uh, guys,” Steven said, looking up with an expression of dread.

Connie blanched.  “Really?  I didn’t know I needed a permit!  Do you know what government department I should contact?  Can I fill the forms out online or should I go in person?  Will they send me to prison if I don’t register?”

 _“Connie,”_ Steven yelped, pointing up.

The Gem Buster hovering over them turned its scanner on them.  Steven nervously yanked his shirt down.  “ ** _Organic life form.  Threat assessment: zero…”_**

“Steven, get behind me,” hissed Connie, too late.

**_“Rose Quartz gem detected.  Threat assessment: hyper-maximum, initiate…”_ **

The Gem Buster was cut off when an enormous fist punched clean through its chassis.

Steven and Connie yelped with horror and grabbed the riveted Ronaldo, trying to drag him back towards Lion.  He refused to move, gazing upwards.  “It’s a _super-powered_ sasquatch!  No doubt the result of some secret government program…”  Belatedly, he seemed to notice Connie and Steven, and shoved them behind himself.  “You kids stay back!  This is a job for an _experienced_ hunter of the weird!”  He whipped out his video camera and turned it on.  “This is Ronaldo, vlogging live from the outskirts of Ocean Town where I have uncovered a secret living weapon that I have designated Subject X, known by the code-name of— _ghk!”_

Jasper was methodically tearing the Gem Buster limb from limb and smashing its chassis to the width of tin foil, almost absent-mindedly, as it warbled, **_“Association with KNOWN hostiles: conconconfirmed.  Attempt to da-damage Drill Class Unit 54: confirmed.  Conclussssssion: termination-ation-ation orDER issued, designation Jasper Alpha-003O-O-O…”_** It went silent when Jasper broke the central rig of the chassis in half.  The burnt-out neural transmitter fell out, rolled towards the humans, and came to rest in a clump of grass.

“Shut up,”Jasper growled at the remains of the Gem Buster, before kicking it aside and turning to look down at Ronaldo.  “Oh.  It’s _you_ again.”

Ronaldo’s knees were knocking together, but he held firm.  “I-I, uh, don’t suppose you’d be interested in giving an exclusive interview for the online audience of KBCW?  Um, I could probably provide c-c-complimentary fries with gravy…!”

“You’re _boring_ me, human,” Jasper rasped, her hand rising.  Ronaldo cringed and held up his camera as a shield.  “I should have mashed you flat the firsttime I caught you skulking around.”

 _“Stop,”_ yelled Steven, running around Ronaldo’s right as Connie deked around his left.  The two kids planted themselves in front of him, Steven’s shield unfolding as Connie drew her sword.

Jasper froze, staring.  _“Rose?”_

“My _name_ is _Steven Universe,”_ Steven shouted up at her, “and I won’t let you hurt _any more_ of my friends, Jasper!”

Jasper stared down at Steven and Connie, and at Ronaldo, who was alternating between having a panic attack and trying to pluck at the two kids’ shirts and pull them away.  She began to laugh, softly at first, and then louder, until the trees around them were shaking.  Connie’s determined expression vanished for a split second, and she shared a look of absolute horror with Steven before forcing her game face back on.

Jasper stopped laughing abruptly, and suddenly offered her hand down in Steven’s direction.  It was, both kids noticed, more than big enough to crush a child’s head with only a little effort.  “Come on, Rose.Stop playing around.  This is _beneath_ you.  Take your proper form,” her voice dropped to a growl, “and _fight me,_ Gem to Gem.”

“I think I need to change my pants,” Ronaldo whimpered into the heavy silence that followed.

Connie squared her shoulders and jabbed her sword upwards at Jasper.  “Stop calling him _Rose!_ His name is Steven, and…and he’s half-human!  He’s not a Gem like you!  He’s not his _mother!”_

Jasper froze, staring down at Connie.  Her eyes travelled slowly over to Steven.  “…is this true?”

Steven hesitated for a moment, and then nodded determinedly.  “Yep!  Half human, half Gem.  Double the awesome…uh?”

Jasper drew her hand back and lowered her head so that her hair shadowed her eyes.  “That can’t be true…that’s a lie…Rose Quartz?  With a _human?_ That’s… _disgusting_ …”

Connie immediately shifted into a fighting stance.  “Don’t you talkabout Steven that way!  Don’t you dare— _ah!”_

Faster than the eye could follow, Jasper snatched Connie into the air by her sword blade and grabbed her around the waist, holding her out of Steven’s reach.  As Connie struggled weakly and beat against Jasper’s grip without results, Jasper turned on Steven with a maniacal grin.  “So what now, Rose?  I bet you’re regretting taking that weak, _pathetic_ form, aren’t you?  You’re tiny, you’re powerless, and you can’t do _anything_ to save…”

Connie whispered something.

Jasper brought her close to her face.  “What’s that?  Begging for mercy already?”

 _“Your gem’s cracked,”_ Connie spat, and brought the hilt of her sword down two-handed on Jasper’s nose.

At the same time, Steven flung his shield, hitting Jasper in the knee and knocking one leg out from under her.  She dropped Connie, clutching her face and roaring with agony.  Steven rushed forward, helped Connie up, and together they raced back to Lion, pausing to grab the stunned Ronaldo and tow him after them.

“Lion Lion _Lion_ we need to go _now,”_ Steven wailed, kicking at Lion’s sides.  A second later, Lion roared open a portal and launched himself through it.

A hand shot through the closing portal and grabbed his tail.  Lion spun in mid-space and roared, knocking its owner back, and then turned and bolted away into pink space with the three kids clinging to his back.

Jasper’s scream of rage followed them through the portal.  _“You can’t run from me, Rose! **I’m coming for you!”**_

* * *

 

“Wow,” said Ronaldo dazedly, as they flew through pink space and time, “that was…there should be a TV show about you guys.”

“Okay, Ronaldo,” said Steven distractedly as he frantically dialed a number.

“Or maybe a comic book…if I wrote it, do you think I could get somebody else to do the storyboarding and art?  Hey, Steven, do you want to do the art?  You could get co-creator credit!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ronaldo,” Connie said, breathing heavily.  “D-do you still have your inhaler?”

“Um…yeah, I think I do.”  Ronaldo rummaged in his pockets.  “Hey, Steven, where’s your lion taking us?”

“Back to Beach City,” Steven said firmly, and then pressed his phone against his ear.  “Dad?  Dad!  You know how I said everything was going to be fine?  Everything’s _not fine!_ Jasper found us and her Gem is cracked and she thinks I’m Mom and now she’s coming to Beach City to _get_ me and I don’t know how to contact the Gems…wait, yes I do!  I just have to find Peridot!  No, Dad, I don’t think you can help with the giant Gem bad guy, but you could evacuate the boardwalk again!  Call Mayor Dewey, he still owes me some political favours, I think, maybe!  What?  Speakers?  Uh, hang on, Dad, I gotta go,” Steven said hurriedly, as Lion landed on the beach just a little north of the Big Donut, the pink portal disappearing behind him, “I love you, call me back!  Peridot, Peridot, gotta find Peridot…”

There was the sound of rotor blades and Peridot landed beside them.  “Yeah, you were completely inconspicuous with your enormous pink lion and your giant pink glowing portal, Steven… _euck?”_

She was abruptly grabbed by the shoulders, whirled around, and pulled nose to nose by a wild-eyed Ronaldo.  “It’s the invasion of the Big Buff Cheeto Puff!  She’s coming for us all!  _Run for your life!”_ He released Peridot and started pacing wildly.  “Should I get all my camera equipment together and film it for the docu-drama of the century?  No, wait, or should I go warn Dad and Pee Dee?  Decisions, decisions…”

Peridot stood as if frozen, her eyes darting down to Steven as she began to tremble.  “Ahaha…he didn’t just say that Jasper’s coming here, did he?”

Steven stared up at her.

_“Did he?”_

Steven nodded unhappily.

Peridot clutched her head and started running in circles.  “I’m gonna die!  _I’m gonna die!”_

Connie tripped her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her.  _“Get ahold of yourself, Gem!”_

Still trembling, Peridot nodded.

Connie blinked back tears.  “Now, uh…send Bob Junior to contact the Crystal Gems and Lapis, get them to come back to Beach City.  Okay?  And then…Steven, what do we do then?”

Steven looked at Connie, then at Ronaldo and Peridot, who were staring at him in desperation.  He stuck his chin out.  “Okay!  Peridot, send forth Bob Junior.  Ronaldo, go warn your dad and Pee Dee, and the Pizzas if you see them, and Mister Smiley, and Suitcase Sam, and basically anybody you see.”

Ronaldo gave him a dubious look.  “Uh…Steven, if _I_ run down the boardwalk yelling about aliens…” He trailed off, a little unhappily.

Peridot pulled herself out of her funk long enough to blink at him.  “Was that a flash of _self-awareness?_ Wow.  I didn’t think you were capable.”

“Okay,” Steven said quickly, cutting Peridot off, “I have a solution!”

* * *

 

Sadie stared.  “You want me to what?”

“Run down the boardwalk screaming to everybody you see that there’s a giant, angry alien warlord who hates humans coming to Beach City and everybody needs to hide,” Steven said reasonably.

Sadie just blinked at him.

Lars put down the box of donuts he’d been holding.  “Uh… _is_ there?  A giant angry alien warlord?”

“Who thinks I’m my mom and wants to kill me,” Steven agreed, “but that’s not important.  The point is, Sadie is well known to be very level-headed and trustworthy, so if _she_ runs down the boardwalk screaming about aliens, people will probably listen to her!”

“I…guess?  Okay?”  Sadie carefully pulled off her Big Donut t-shirt and folded it on the counter, revealing a sensible black sleeveless T underneath.  “Steven, this had better not be a prank.”

“Cross my heart, hope _not_ to die, stick a plug robonoid in my eye,” Steven said.

“It’s _true,”_ Peridot protested to her, “and you have no idea how serious this situation is, so hurry up and get to it!”

“You’re still banned from the store,” Sadie pointed out testily.

_“I’ll yell at you about it from outside if you want!”_

“Simmer down!  I believe Steven.  I’ll go do…wait,” Sadie said, freezing, “I can’t leave Lars alone in the store.”

“Sadie, I’m not a baby!”

“Last time I left you alone in the store you went outside to suntan and blew up the break room microwave!  The whole store was filled with smoke and you didn’t even notice!”

“It was _one time…”_

Ronaldo cleared his throat and raised a finger.  “Excuse me, but I believe I have a solution.”

* * *

 

Peridot plucked at Sadie’s Big Donut t-shirt glumly.  “I don’t see why _I_ have to participate in this farce.”

“Sadie’s t-shirt’s too small for me,” Ronaldo said happily.

Lars and Peridot stared at each other.

“Don’t fight,” Sadie said, still holding the door open for the plug robonoid to go whirring out onto the sand and up the cliffs, “and Peridot, since you’re a deputized Big Donut employee now, you have access to the break room, so use it if you need to.  Come on, Steven, Connie,” she added, and the two kids hurried outside and down the boardwalk, Steven pulling out his cell phone to pick up another call.  Sadie trotted after them, the door jingling shut behind her.

Lars glared at Ronaldo, who was overturning a table.  “Shouldn’t _you_ be going, too?”

“No,” Ronaldo said, securing the table with a couple of chairs and hunkering in behind it with his trusty video camera propped against the top edge.  “I have a duty to my readers, and to _the truth.”_

“Yeah, but, uh…it sounds like you almost got _killed_ just now,” Lars said hesitantly.

Ronaldo gave him a cynical look.  “Oh, and you care?”

“I don’t want you _dead,_ man, I just…don’t want you to get your anti-social cooties all over me,” Lars mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Well, excuse _me_ if I choose to dedicate myself to something other than kissing up to whoever is “cool” this week…”

“It wouldn’t be a _problem_ if you weren’t such an egocentric little weirdo about everything…”

“ _I_ learned _long ago_ that trusting anyone but myself with The Work is an exercise in futility…”

“Yeah?  _I_ learned a _long_ time before that that if you _don’t_ fit in, people will completely ruin your _life…”_

“Wow,” Peridot said, blinking.  “You bond through bickering?  What a weird species you are.”

Lars and Ronaldo turned to gape at her.

Peridot spread her hands.  “Couldn’t you just, I don’t know, groom each other for tiny insects?  It’d be a lot more pleasant, and less aggravating toaa _aAAAAAAHHHHH!”_

Ronaldo and Lars, struck dumb with horror, watched as a giant orange hand smashed through the wall, grabbed Peridot, and dragged her out through the opening.

“Aw, man,” said Lars weakly, as crumbling plaster dust rose up in the air like flour, “now Sadie’s _never_ gonna let me handle the store alone again…”

* * *

 

Jasper hauled Peridot up by her shirt until they were nose to nose.  “I thought I’d find you skulking around here somewhere.”

Peridot laughed nervously.  “Oh, Jasper, ahahaha, hi.  Haven’t seen you in a while?  That’s…a pretty bad crack in your gem.  Maybe you should get that looked at…?”

Jasper shook her hard.  “ _Shut up and tell me where Rose Quartz is._ You should have at _least_ kept tabs on her and those Crystal Gems, right?  Or did you just spend all your time holed up in these human dwellings, scuttling around like a useless parasite?”

Peridot, almost paralyzed with fear, quickly held up her hands.  “I did!  I-I did keep tabs on them!  I even infiltrated their ranks!  I know exactly where they are, I’ll show you where they’re hiding now, it’s just…” Her finger started to drift, first towards the Temple, and then slowly westwards, towards farmland and the Kindergarten, “…just over that way… _NGYA!”_

Jasper suddenly yanked her close and stared at the t-shirt she was holding Peridot up by, as if noticing it for the first time.  Her lips slowly pulled back from her teeth.  “ _What_ is _this?”_

Peridot’s grin was more rictus than expression now.  “Ahehehe…souvenir of conquest?”

“…you _traitor._ You’ve been _suborned.”_   Jasper dragged Peridot up so that her face was barely an inch from Jasper’s own.  “Now I know why those robots have been giving me such trouble…”

“Hey, _you_ were the one that probably punched one of _them_ first,” Peridot snapped without thinking.

Jasper stared at her for a moment, and then grabbed her by the ankles and started to flick her from side to side like a metronome or a wet rag, making alternate Peridot-shaped indents in the pavement and the boardwalk.  “Don’t—you— _backtalk_ —me, you little worm!”

Peridot frantically tried, first her finger-copters, then her palm blaster, which missed and hit the cliff, and finally tried to electrocute Jasper, which got her punched two feet down through the Big Donut’s concrete patio. 

Just down the boardwalk, the commotion had convinced both locals and tourists that it might have been a good idea to get out of Jasper’s path.  Kofi Pizza, who was shooing his daughters into the jeep, turned and yelped in horror when his mother trotted out of the store, sporting an enormous pair of boxing gloves, and started to head determinedly down the boardwalk in Jasper and Peridot’s direction.  “ _Mother!_ What are you doing?  That’s not safe!”

Nanafua hesitated, then nodded.  “Oh!  You’re right.”  She turned and trotted back inside.

 _“Thank_ you, now get in the… _no, not like that!”_

“This is much safer,” Nanafua said calmly, framed in the restaurant doorway with a soft helmet and a bite guard.  “Why are you making such a fuss?”

“You can’t fight that monster woman!”

Nanafua grinned.  “I bet I can take her down with one punch.”

“Listen, I respect that you were the All-Accra Ladies’ Boxing Champion of ’64…and ’65…but think of your granddaughters!  You will traumatize them!”

Kiki and Jenny stood up in the jeep and punched the air.  _“Go get her, Gunga!  Lay her out and toss her like she's dough!”_

“Please, mother,” Kofi begged tearfully, “just get in the jeep!”

“Oh, okay.  But I am keeping the gloves.  You never know!”

As Peridot lay groaning in the debris, Jasper loomed over her.  “Those robots may not have been able to deal with you, but that’s just fine.  I prefer handling traitors,” her eyes gleamed menacingly, “the old-fashioned way.”

A frozen donut hit her in the vicinity of her ear.  She looked up.

Shaking from head to toe, his eyes squeezed shut, Lars was standing in the doorway of the Big Donut, wildly winging rock-hard frozen donuts at Jasper’s head.  About one in ten connected in any meaningful way.  _“Leave that lousy little green pop-rock alone!”_

“Yeah,” bellowed Ronaldo, wrenching a patio umbrella out of its stand and brandishing it like a sword.  “Back off, sexy sasquatch!”  Lars opened his eyes long enough to stare at Ronaldo in disbelief.  Ronaldo caught him looking, and shrugged.  “What?  A guy can dream… _eeeeaaaaugh!”_

Jasper loomed over the two of them, and snatched the umbrella out of Ronaldo’s hands, tossing it over her shoulder into the sea.  “I’d forgotten just how _irritating_ humans can be when they think they can fight Gems.  I’m gonna do your gene pool a favour and remove you from it.”

Lars and Ronaldo hugged each other and wailed in terror as Jasper reached for them.

_“Cut it out right now!”_

Jasper turned, looked down, and then looked down considerably further.

Sadie was glaring ferociously up at her, wielding a broom handle with FISH STEW PIZZA written on it in wide-tipped marker.  “You leave all of them alone!”

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

“No!”  Sadie snapped the end off the broom handle and charged Jasper.  She managed to dodge a swipe, land on Jasper’s arm, climb it with speed born of desperation, and jab her hard in the bicep with the pointy end.  “Hah!”

Jasper slapped her into the air, sending her arcing high and towards the unyielding cliff face.

 _“Sadie,”_ Lars screamed desperately, _“no!”_

“Oh god, the humanity,” wailed Ronaldo, throwing an arm over his eyes.  “She was the best of us!”

Both of them were distracted by a buzzing sound, and stared.

Peridot had managed to get an arm up and extend a shaft of green light, plucking Sadie’s tumbling form out of the air.  A bubble of sickly green surrounded the frozen, perplexed-looking Sadie, pulling her out of the air and carefully setting her down on the patio next to the Peridot-shaped hole in the concrete.  Peridot retracted the bubble and flopped back with a grunt.  “Oh I think I strained something.  I think half of my head is caved in.  Ugh.”

“You saved me,” Sadie said hesitantly, and then Lars ran at her, pounced on her, picked her up, and started sobbing openly.  “Hey, hey, Lars, no, it’s okay, I’m okay, aha, a little bruised, but…” She trailed off, and she and Lars both looked up round-eyed, as a shadow fell over them.

Jasper’s eyes were mad with rage.  _“I am **so sick of your pestilent little species…**_ huh?”

 _“Jasper,”_ Steven yelled from behind her.

Sadie and Lars took the opportunity to drag Peridot out of her crater and hustle her and the tearful Ronaldo back into what remained of the Big Donut.

Jasper stared, ignoring them.  “What’s _this_ supposed to be?”

“The welcome wagon,” Greg Universe said firmly, standing on the roof of his seriously souped-up van.  He’d used bungee cords and extension cables to attach half a dozen sub-woofers to both sides of the van; resting on the hood was Mayor Dewey’s loudspeaker carousel, obviously hastily detached and with the Mayor’s sculpted head still perched on it.  Greg was sporting sunglasses, a Mr. Universe T-shirt a few sizes too big for him, and a slightly tarnished electric guitar.  “Or should I say, the _un-_ welcome wagon!”

To the right of the van, Steven stood with his shield up and his fists clenched; on the right, Connie was standing beside Lion with her sword drawn and an expression of grim determination on her face.

 Jasper’s puzzled look gave way to a contemptuous grin.  “How _sad._ And just what are you supposed to be?”

“You can call me Mr. Universe,” Greg said.  “I’m Steven’s father.  Rose Quartz was my partner.  And this is _our_ town.  Last chance to take the highway out of Beach City, ma’am, or you’re going to be a _very_ sorry…giant…alien warrior person.”

“…you’re the human?”

“Um?”

 _“Rose’s_ human?”

Connie and Steven, uncertain, looked up at Greg, who just looked puzzled.  “Uh, we had a relationship based on mutual respect and love if that’s what you mea—uh oh.”

Jasper’s expression had gone from confusion to hatred to a loathing so intense that she was trembling from head to toe.  “You garbage insect.  **_How dare you think a Gem like Rose Quartz would even LOOK at you?!”_**

“Mr. Universe,” Connie cried, as Jasper snapped her helmet into existence and charged at them.

 _“Dad,”_ Steven shouted, jamming in a pair of pink earplugs, _“come on, Dad, you gotta do it now!”_

Greg’s expression had set into stubborn determination.  “Alright…let’s see how you like my _POWER CHORDS!”_

He brought up his guitar pick, slammed down, and began to rock out.  As the speakers thrummed, and then whined, and then screamed, every dial turned up to ten (and one up to eleven), Lion added his roar to the cacophony.

The windows of every building in the vicinity blew out, including the Big Donut.  Panic-stricken crabs fled for the ocean.  Flocks of sea birds exploded out of the rocks and made for the air, shrieking in terror.  Parts of the boardwalk peeled back as Greg made his guitar wail ever-higher, amplified through the van’s sound system and blasting through the speakers like a solid wall of pure pain.

Jasper tried to drive forward, as the crack in her gem widened and lengthened, approaching the sides and top of the gem’s seam.  She began to sink to her knees, her helmet disappearing as she clutched at her head, mouth open in an inaudible wail.

Steven climbed up on the van and pulled on Greg’s sleeve.  “Dad,” he yelled above the cacophony, “you’ve got to stop!  If you do any more, you could kill her!”

Greg immediately stopped playing, and the speakers whined, groaned, and shivered into silence.  One of them began smoking gently and exploded.  “I could?”

“If her gem cracks all the way through, it could—AHH!”

 _“Steven!”_ Greg snatched for his son and fell off the van with a yelp.

Laughing madly, Jasper held Steven up by the throat.  “ _Finally._ I’m sick and tired of these interruptions.  Now…”  Her eyes narrowed.  “Let’s see what happens when _this_ form is destroyed, Rose, and you’ll have no choice…you’ll _have_ to regenerate, and _fight me._ ”

_“Jasper!”_

With a crunch, the Crystal Gems landed on the boardwalk, surrounding Jasper.

Garnet bared her teeth.  _“Drop_ him, Jasper, or we’ll smash you to gravel.”

“Oh, you think _you_ scare me?”  Jasper looked from Pearl, who was almost in tears of fury, to the seething Amethyst, to Garnet, who held up her gauntlets like a boxer.  “All you little rejects?  The only one of your lousy rebellion who was worth anything,” she shook Steven like a fish, “won’t stop pretending to be a human _child!”_

“Don’t you _get_ it?!” Garnet snapped at her.  “He _is_ a child!”

“He’s not Rose, Jasper, he’s _Steven,”_ Pearl cried desperately.  “He doesn’t know anything about the rebellion, or the Homeworld!  He doesn’t remember anything!  He’s a completely different person!  He certainly wouldn’t remember _you!”_

“If you kill him,” Garnet roared at Jasper, “you’ll have destroyed any chance of doing battle with Rose Quartz again!  And what’s left?  Where’s the great _challenge_ for you then?”

For a moment, Jasper was still, and then her eyes narrowed.  “You’re lying.”

“Oh my freaking purple polka-dot underpants are you _really this dumb?”_ Amethyst yelled at her.  “If you…if you _hurt_ Steven, the three of us, we’ll mash you to _paste!”_

“Big talk, runt, but I don’t see your…”  A shadow fell over Jasper, and the entire boardwalk.  She looked up, away from the struggling Steven.  “What…?”

 _“Let him go, Jasper,”_ Lapis Lazuli rasped, her face a mask of rage.  Above her, a tsunami’s worth of water hovered above the boardwalk, shifting into increasingly unpleasant shapes.  “Or I swear, I’ll make you suffer in ways _only you and I know how…”_

For a split second, Jasper broke out in a sweat, her pupils contracting to pin-points as she looked up at Lapis.  Then it was gone and she started to laugh, almost hysterically.  “Well, _thanks,_ Lapis Lazuli.  Thank you _so_ much.”

Lapis’ confidence, and her control over the water, wavered for a moment.  A few drops splashed down onto the dry, torn-up boardwalk.  “What?”

“You just gave me another reason to destroy this weak little body of Rose’s.  I didn’t even think of it— _how much it’ll hurt you when it’s gone,”_ Jasper hissed, and dug her fingers into Steven’s face.  A second later, a pink sheen appeared on her skin, and Steven’s.  She threw her free hand up to shield her eyes.  _“What?”_

In midair, Connie burst out of a portal, riding Lion, and sliced through the arm holding Steven, cutting Jasper off at the elbow.  The severed arm disappeared in a puff, and Steven tumbled to the ground.

Garnet snatched him.  Amethyst immediately covered her back, whip drawn, snarling.

Jasper whirled on them both with mad fury in her eyes, and made the mistake of turning her back on Pearl. 

For a split second, she froze, and then reached up to touch her neck with her remaining hand.  Her head began to slide off her body, and then the whole thing poofed into a cloud of white smoke.

Pearl vaulted through it, landed, pirouetted, caught Jasper’s gem, and bubbled it.  Then she turned immediately to the other Gems and to Connie.  “Steven!  Are you alright?”

“I’m kinda squished and I think my ribs are bruised,” Steven said weakly, “but I’m okay.  Wow, Connie, Pearl, that was some cool _Lonely Blade_ stuff you guys did!”

Connie and Pearl exchanged blushing looks, and then Pearl dropped her eyes.  “We’re…sorry you had to see that, Steven.  And so sorry you had to go through all that.”

“We _did_ tell you not to follow us,” Garnet added to Steven, “but by now we should have known better.  Of course you would have tried to help.  We almost weren’t there for you in time.”  She massaged her temple with her free hand.  “If it hadn’t been for that robonoid…”

Steven sniffed.  “Bob and Bob Junior both helped save my life.”

Amethyst, who’d been patting Steven over as if to reassure herself he was intact, glanced at Greg, then at Greg’s van.  “Whoa!  Hella set-up there, G-man.  What’d you do, distract Jasper with your sick chords?”

“Uh…something like that,” Greg said weakly.  “I just need to…lie down for a minute.”  He face-planted gently into the boardwalk.  Garnet let Steven down so he could stumble over and lie next to his father.  “You okay, big guy?”

“Yeah.  I think so.  You?”

“Yeah, just a little, haha, a little hard on the old ticker, some of this stuff.  _Phew._ I mean, I like big healthy ladies, but that was a little too much even for me.”  Greg glanced up at Pearl, who had come to crouch next to Steven and fuss over him while Garnet held onto Jasper’s bubbled gem.  “So, uh…did I make things harder for more people than I thought I did?  When me and Rose got together.”

Pearl paused and blinked down at him.  “Greg, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh, well, Jasper seemed to have a…problem…with me and Rose, and Steven.  And probably pretty much everything else, but I think I accidentally pushed a few big red buttons, y’know?”

“Greg,” Garnet said, “you’re not responsible for the actions of someone whose gem is cracked.  If the body isn’t severely affected—which Jasper’s wasn’t—then the mind suffers.”

“It was probably a delusion,” Pearl agreed.  “Rose and Jasper never met, on the field or otherwise.  _I_ would have known about it if they had.”

Steven lay next to Greg, staring up at the sky.  Connie came and sat next to him, looking dazed.  “I never cut an actual piece off an actual person before.  It feels…weird.”

“Mayyybe that’s a good thing?”

“That’s true.  Now I know I won’t make a good doctor.  I can’t even cut bits off of people who are trying to squeeze my best friend to death!”  Unconsciously, Connie reached down and took Steven’s hand.  “So…what happens now?”

Lapis finished returning her enormous water payload to the ocean, landed on the boardwalk, and padded over to Garnet.  She examined Jasper’s bubbled gem for a few minutes, silently, and then looked up into Garnet’s face.  “Destroy it.”

“What?”

“Smash her gem.  There’s no other option.” Lapis looked Garnet in the eye.  “You _have_ to destroy her.  Don’t you understand?  It’s the _only_ way to make sure Steven will be safe from her.  Otherwise she’ll _never—ever—stop._ ”

In the ensuing shocked silence, Nanafua Pizza could be heard, just down the street, telling her exasperated son, “I _still_ think I could have taken her with one punch.”


	12. The Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Jasper contained, Lapis and the Crystal Gems are locked in a stalemate about what to do with her. Meanwhile, Steven struggles with the frustration of quick-dry glue that doesn't dry quickly enough, makes up a song, recovers his healing powers, and tries to put his conflict resolution skills to the test.
> 
> None of which stops Jasper and Lapis from totalling the beach house.
> 
> (Warning: this chapter contains a not-too-detailed description of BODY HORROR, and if that is something that twigs you badly, please please watch out for it!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been quiet for a while as I've been working on some edits; those edits evolved into some pretty heavy re-writing, hopefully for the better. I want to thank all my readers, everyone who's left kudos, and especially those who took the time to comment! I wanted to make a fic for you that could stand up to a re-read, and I'm hoping this newer and slightly tweaked version of Learning to Breathe Underwater delivers. Sadly, I was unable to keep in a couple of aspects, like Gem death customs, that I had in the original which didn't fit with the new revisions; if you miss something, I've a downloaded copy of the old edition.)
> 
> I'd like to thank CompletelyDifferent and For+Spite for pointing out that in the original, the Gems spent too long fixating on Malachite when Lapis' arrival made the most likely culprit Peridot; Catflower Queen for reminding me of the name of the "clicky thing" (Newton's Cradle!), Krazyfan1 and juliethedreambenderx for pointing out a confusing bit of dialogue that didn't work well; Krazyfan1 for the reminder that Amethyst has the ability to shapeshift into a bird; For+Spite for a reminder about Opal during the fight scene in Chapter 8 that triggered some extensive revisions; Ruise for another piece of revision that had to do with speculation about how many members of each Gem class there are; mllelaurel for pointing out that Garnet's original plan to recruit Jasper was uncharacteristically risky; SardonicFabulist for bringing up interactions between Peridot and Ronaldo; and For+Spite for pointing out that Sadie's characterization was off.
> 
> Finally, thanks so much to Sunder+the+Gold, astrovagant, Catflower Queen, TheBlindBandit, CuppaJasmine, mstrmstry24, LimeColoredSpaceDot, mllelaurel, The Vorpal Eskimo, Queen Egg, gemkid, Key, Mar, mary, an unknown guest, Gamer Girl, FortunateKistune, AuroraDragon, TwinTwain, CompletelyDifferent, Ruise, and SardonicFabulist for your amazing support! Now, on with the show!

“Hey, Steven, your house is really nice,” Sadie said, hands jammed in her pockets and looking around.  “Howwww come there’s a hole in the roof?”

“Oh, uh,” Connie said, taking a seat by the window, “Peridot tried to take me hostage.”

Sadie stared at her.  “How’d _that_ work out?”

“A…bout as well as you’d expect, given that it’s Peridot?”

“Is this your human gratitude,” Peridot groaned, as Garnet carried her up into the loft and dumped her unceremoniously on Steven’s bed.  “Oooh, I _hurt._ I still think part of my skull structure imploded, ugh, it feels _soft_ when I touch it.”

“That’s your hair,” Garnet said.

“…oh.”

“She’s gonna be okay, though, right?” Sadie asked Pearl, glancing worriedly up at the loft.

“Hmm?  Oh, yes, she’ll be fine.  Gems can put up with quite a lot of, ah, damage to their physical bodies without any lasting ill effects.”

“Speak for yourself,” Peridot grumbled. 

Steven hurried up the stairs to join Garnet, ceremoniously tucked a blanket over the startled Peridot, and then trotted down again to sit beside Connie.  “Are you okay?”

Connie nodded.  “I…I should probably go home.  I don’t know _what_ I’m going to tell my parents, but I’ll have to come up with something good.  Mom said yesterday that she’s concerned I’m spending all this extra time at tennis lessons, but I, uh, e-mailed my instructor a week ago and told him my family was going on vacation.”  She hung her head.  “I definitely can’t tell them about today.”

Steven reached out and took her hand.  “It’ll be okay!  Maybe Dad can give you a ride home?”

There was a minor explosion from outside on the beach, and a faint cry of _“Oh for the love of Van Halen!  Can’t a guy keep his ride together just this once?”_   Connie, Steven, and Sadie looked outside, to see a plume of smoke rising from behind one of the rock crags on the beach, followed by a single, sad tire rolling out across the sand before plopping on its side when it hit the surf.  Greg poked his head out from behind the crag, saw them looking, and waved with a forced smile.  “It’s okay, kids!  Nothing a little duct tape can’t fix…okay, maybe a lot of duct tape.”  He vanished behind the crag again, and only the sound of faint mutters and percussive maintenance followed.

Sadie glanced down at Connie.  “Want me to take you home?  I borrowed my mom’s car, and I, uh, think the Big Donut’s closed for business, at least for the next couple of days.”  She sighed.  “I’ll have to phone the damage in to head office.  Good thing our insurance deductable covers monsters and aliens…”

“Okay,” Connie said, sliding off the seat with her hand still in Steven’s.

Sadie gave her a weak smile.  “I’m sure we can come up with something that won’t make your parents blow up.  That.  Doesn’t include lions or swords or rampaging alien warlords.”

“Thank you, Sadie,” Connie said, still holding on tightly to Steven.  She turned to him and took both his hands in hers.  “Are you _sure_ you’ll be okay?”

“Yeah!  I’m completely fine.  Jasper’s in her bubble, Peridot’s not evil anymore, and, uhhhh, there’s still a fleet of monster robots out to destroy us all but…yeah, everything’s okay!  Except Dad’s van, but Pearl can help fix it.”

“Not right now, Steven,” Pearl said.

“Pearl can help fix it later,” Steven said without missing a beat.  He hesitated for a moment, and then pulled Connie into a tight hug.

She hugged him back and sniffed, hard, into his shoulder.  “I was just…really scared she was going to hurt you…”

“Yeah, but you were awesome, and it’s okay, and she’s in a bubble now, Connie, I promise, everything’s going to be…”

There was a momentary blaze of light.  Lapis, who had just alighted on the deck outside, was forced to shield her eyes, as were Pearl, Peridot, Sadie, and Garnet.

Stevonnie blinked, looked down at themself, and then looked around at their audience and turned very pale.  _“Ahh!_ Sorry!  I’m sorry!”  A second later, they split in a burst of light and Connie and Steven plopped to the floor, shaking themselves.

Peridot sat up, round-eyed.  “Did…did he just fuse with a _human?_ ”

“Yeeup,” Garnet said, with a tiny note of satisfaction in her tone.  “Hi, Stevonnie.”

“Bye, Stevonnie,” Amethyst said, poking her head out from under the kitchen counter with an armload of colourful permanent markers.

“Oh, dear.  Again?  How many times has this happened, Steven?”

Connie and Steven looked at each other, then back at Pearl.  “Uh…twice?”

“No, three times, remember, your dad and the vinyl records?”

“Oh yeah!”

Sadie’s mouth was hanging open, her face going pink.  After a moment, she composed herself and cleared her throat.  “Okay, so, Connie, we’d better get going because, uh, it’s a long drive to your house and…um…which…which one of you told me that giving away donuts wasn’t a very sound business practice, when you were.  Um.  Stevonnie.  That one night?”

Steven pointed at Connie, who pointed at herself.  Then he frowned and pointed at himself too.  “I’m not really sure, now that I think about it…”

“Uh, never mind, it doesn’t matter, it’s just been a long day.  A long…weird…violent day.  So, hey, Connie, you ride shotgun, you pick the music.”

“Okay,” Connie agreed, getting up and taking one last look at Steven.  “See you soon.  And please _please_ call me if anything happens!”  She turned and followed Sadie out the door, past Lapis, and down the stairs.  She came back up and waved goodbye to the Crystal Gems and Lion, and then scampered back down again.

Lapis watched them go, an expression of awe briefly visible on her face, and then came inside, shutting the screen door behind her.

“Isn’t fusing with a human _unhygienic?”_ Peridot was demanding of Garnet.

“No.  Also, good job today.”

“Wha?”

“You were helpful.  It’s a big improvement.”

Peridot turned greener than usual and rolled over, muttering into her covers.  Garnet jumped down from the loft onto the couch as Pearl carried the warp map to the coffee table.  Amethyst joined the two of them, carrying the markers and an enormous bowl of chips.  She patted the free space next to her.  “Yo, Steven, Lapis, come sit it down and let’s get our strategy on.  Those robots aren’t gonna blow themselves up.”

Steven joined her and they had a tiny tug-of-war over the bowl before Amethyst gave up and let him share.

Lapis remained standing, staring at them.  “Where did you put her?”

“Jasper is with the other bubbled Gems, Lapis,” Garnet said.  “She is no longer a threat to you or anyone.”

“You’re wrong.”

The Crystal Gems and Steven looked up from the warp map.  Pearl sighed.  “Lapis, we discussed this.  She’s in stasis inside the bubble.  There’s no consciousness, and she certainly can’t punch her way out…”

“You don’t know her.  _None_ of you know her like I do.” Lapis took in their incredulous stares and looked away, crossing her arms tightly and cradling her elbows.  “Why do you think I had to fight so hard to keep her down?  She doesn’t _stop._ Not ever.”

“Uh,” Amethyst began, “listen, Double-L, I know being Malachite was probably seriously freaky for you, but…”

“This has _nothing to do with Malachite!”_

“This has a lot to do with Malachite,” Garnet said, settling forward with her elbows on her knees, watching Lapis intently.  “That experience hurt and frightened you very badly.  I understand that, but you can’t let it override your reasoning…”

“Why won’t you just _listen_ to me?!For _once!_ She’s still dangerous!”  Lapis looked around at their incredulous faces, and began to pull in on herself, her hair shadowing her eyes.  “Why won’t you believe me?  Don’t you even care what happens to Steven?”

As Steven sat mute with shock, Pearl drew in a sharp breath.  “Of _course we…_ why on Earth would you ask a question like that?”

“Because you’re not _acting_ like it!  If you cared about him, you’d destroy her, because she’s going to get out and she’s _going_ to come for him!  She barely cares about the rest of you, but she’s… _fixated_ on him…”

“And on you,” Garnet pointed out.

 _“That_ doesn’t matter.  I can deal with her.  I-I know I can, now.  But Steven…he…”  Her hands dropped to her sides and balled into fists.  “If you won’t get your hands dirty…then let me do it.”

Steven snapped out of his stunned silence.  “Lapis, _no!”_

“I’m sorry, Steven, but _you_ don’t get a say in this…”

“Yes, he _does,_ and I agree with him,” Garnet said.

“Lapis, we can’t just let you kill another Gem in cold blood, while they’re helpless,” Pearl protested.  “It’s not…it’s not the Crystal Gem way, it’s not _Rose’s_ way!”

Lapis stared at them, and then turned away, gripping her own arm.  “So that’s it.  You still think I’m just some unstable…enemy of everything you fight for…”

“Hey, whoa, _what?”_ Amethyst got to her feet, upsetting the chip bowl.  “Where’d _that_ come from?”

“Lapis, for _days_ we’ve been trying to show you that we _don’t_ think of you as an enemy,” Pearl snapped, standing up.

“If you won’t protect Steven from Jasper properly, I _will_ be your enemy,” Lapis ground out, turning on her suddenly.  The two of them stared each other down, but it was Lapis who looked away first, turning on her heel and sprinting to the screen door to slam it open.  Something crunched under her feet as she ran.

Steven unfroze and went after her, dodging Amethyst’s attempt to grab him.  He lunged out onto the deck, but Lapis had already taken flight.  _“Wait,_ Lapis,” he cried after her, “don’t go!  We can talk things out!”

Lapis paused in mid-air, her face a mask of misery and fury.  “Steven, this isn’t something we can just… _talk about_.  There’s…there’s nothing more to say.I’m sorry.”  She flapped her wings and flew, higher and higher, out over the ocean until Steven could no longer see her, a spot among seagulls.

Amethyst joined him on the deck and sagged against the railing.  “Yeah, _that_ went well.  Stupid Bob.”

“I really have no idea where this all came from,” Pearl said unhappily, coming up to peer out next to Amethyst.  “I thought we were making progress, and then…well, this.”

“It’s not good,” Garnet agreed from the doorway.  “But we can’t compromise on this.  No matter how afraid she is.  She’ll be back, Steven.”

Steven sniffed and looked up at Garnet.  “You think so?”

“I’m certain.  She just needs time to collect herself.  This is a vital turning point for her.  Probably.”

“Of course, there is always the possibility that she’ll simply go into isolation and develop into a vengeful shell of her former self,” Pearl began, and then went stiff.  “I mean, haha, a _very remote_ possibility.  Perhaps, mm, a one hundredth of a percent possibility.  Or one thousandth of a percent,” she added, increasingly perkily, only to droop when Steven didn’t stir from the railing.

“Just for the record,” Peridot called from Steven’s bed, “I’m in full agreement with her.  You should have fed Jasper to the Gem Busters.”

“Yes, but nobody in their right mind should listen to your advice,” Garnet replied.  “Much less give you control of a spaceship.”

_“Hey!”_

“Steven?” Pearl said nervously as Steven turned and went back inside.  “Did you want to have macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight?  I’m sure Lapis will be back by…oh.  Oh, no.  Steven, I’m sure we have some super glue around here that Amethyst hasn’t eaten…we can put her back together as good as new…”

Steven silently began to pick up the broken pieces of Sea Explorer Gal from the floor and tried to fit her tiny arms and hat back onto her body.

* * *

 

The next morning, Lapis still hadn’t returned to the Temple.

Steven came inside with his ukulele on his back, hands shoved in his pockets and head drooping, and examined the Sea Explorer Gal figurine that was drying on the counter with a small, beautifully lettered sign that said _Do Not Touch Please._  

Steven touched one of the arms, and groaned when it fell off.  “Oh, man, it’s _still_ not done yet?  I thought this glue was supposed to be quick-dry.”  He sighed, slumped on the counter, and put his face in his hands, before sticking the arm back on as best he could and carrying on to the Temple door, which he banged on.  “Amethyst!  Amethyst Amethyst Amethyyyst!”

The door split open and Amethyst poked her head out of her room.  “’Sup Steve-o?”

“Um…Pearl’s taking a break from checking warps to help Dad, and now Dad’s almost done fixing the van, but Pearl says they need a…nine-eighths Bangalore sprocket wrench and a gallon of engine oil?”

“Oh, is that all?  I got tons of that stuff.  C’mon in, I’ll get it for you.”  The door slid shut and Amethyst trotted off with Steven in tow.  “Still no Lapis, huh?”

“No,” Steven said miserably.  “What did she mean _there’s nothing more to say?_ There’s a whole lot to say!  Talking about stuff _helps!”_

Amethyst shrugged, a little glumly.  “Enh, I dunno, sometimes not, little man.  Hey, Garnet back yet from checking the warp at Mask Island and the Temple of Time?”

“…not yet.”

“Rats.  Well, anyway, just gimme a minute, I got what you need…” Amethyst came up from a junk pile and made a face.  “Or I _thought_ I did.  Hang on, I’m still not 100% back to my old system, between Pearl “organizing” my junk and the stupid Slinker messing up my whole space.  Be riiight back!”  She dove into another pile.

Steven watched, and waited, and finally went off to splash in the shallows of a puddle with his sandals off.  It brought a smile to his face for about thirty seconds, before he stopped and stared down unhappily into the water.  “It could’ve been us, Lapis,” he said, “you and me.”  Something caught his eye and he crouched down and squinted.  “Hey, isn’t this the puddle that goes to the Burning RooOOOOOOM?”

The puddle sucked him in with hardly a sound.

He popped out, head-first, and managed to free the rest of himself by wiggling.  He landed on one of the twisty vein-like tubes protruding from the walls, and managed to shin down it with some difficulty.  As soon as his bare feet hit the floor, he yelped and did a little dance.  “Ow ow ow hot hot hot…oh, there’s a cool spot.  Ahhh.”  He hesitated and looked overhead.  “Hey, Centipeedle.  Long time no see!  Watermelon Tourmaline…Heaven Beetle…Earth Beetle…oh.  Hey, I recognize that nose!”

Steven stared up at Jasper’s bubble.  It was hovering with a cluster of other bubbles, just over the smouldering pit in the centre of the room.

Steven shook his head at it.  “You don’t seem so scary when you’re just a snoot.  Well, okay, I guess you are pretty darn scary, but…I just wish I knew why Lapis is so afraid of you.  She’s usually brave!”  He sat down, cross-legged, and tuned his ukulele.  “Aw, my strings are still wet.  Let’s try it anyway. 

_Ohhhh you came to Beach City in a big green ship_

_And you were pretty grumpy, must’ve been a rough trip_

_You shoved my friend Lapis into a cell_

_But maybe that’s because you never learned to love yourself?_

_J-J-J-Jasper_

_You’re super-huge and mean…_ and orange!

_But nothing rhymes with orange_

_You fought Garnet and you punched my face_

_With your face_

_And then you fell from space_

_J-J-J-Jasper_

_Why you gotta be so mad?_

_Deep down are you really secretly sad?_

_J-J-J-Jasper_

_You’re a disaster_

_J-J-J-Jasper,”_ Steven finished, plucking at his ukulele.  He squinted at the frets.  “Hmm, I dunno, it needs a little more _oomph._ Maybe Dad can do something with the …”

There was a tiny ‘pop’ sound from overhead.

Steven looked up, too late, as something splashed into the burning pit.  “Uh?  AHH!”  He leapt backwards as a blinding white figure dragged itself out of the pit, roaring in pain, and flung itself on the floor of the burning room.  As it resolved, it began to crawl towards Steven.

Quaking in terror, Steven started to shin up one of the vein-pipes, and then froze, looking down.

One of Jasper’s eyes was sagging out on its stalk.  Her teeth were dissolving in her mouth, which was hanging open much too wide.  Her too-long fingers were trying to creep across the floor like spider legs, and the rest of her body appeared to be melting.  She tried to say something, and then let out a muffled groan of agony as the crack in her gem widened and deepened with every move she made.

Steven’s horror-induced paralysis lasted about ten seconds before he jumped down again.  “Ow ow hot hot _hang on, Jasper,_ I’ve got…I’ve got healing spit, just stay still…” He hesitated.  “How are you coming back with your gem this cracked?  Shouldn’t you have poofed by now?!”

Jasper flopped weakly against the floor like a landed fish and tried to say something, but it came out as distorted mumbles.  Her left arm dropped off and seemed to melt into the floor.

“AHHHH never mind, questions later, healing now!”  Steven spat furiously into his hand, then reached out and planted his palm over Jasper’s face.  “Please work, _please work…”_

For a good long moment, nothing happened, and Jasper continued to fall apart, slowly and terribly, under Steven’s stricken stare.  And then a pink sparkle appeared, and then another, and the cracks in Jasper’s gem glowed brightly before knitting themselves together.  The horrific mess turned to light and re-formed, and Jasper drew herself up to her full height, holding her head.  “I…what?”  She stared down at Steven, her expression of growing hostility mingled with confusion.  “Rose, did you just…?”

 _“Jasper,”_ roared Garnet, leaping through the door into the room.  “Steven, get away from her!”

“You!  The fusion?”

Garnet snapped her gauntlets into place.  “Ready for a Round Two knockout!  How did _you_ get out of your bubble?”

Jasper looked blank for a moment, then looked around herself, suddenly aware of the dozens upon dozens of bubbled Gems floating just within her reach.  She grinned malevolently at Garnet.  “I don’t know.  But they seem pretty easy to pop, don’t they?”  She stretched her finger out to jab one.

It bounced off a wall of pink.  Snarling, Jasper jabbed at the concave pink surface again, with no result, and then punched it, to no effect.

“ _This_ one isn’t,” Steven said firmly, standing with his arms crossed and his ukulele slung over his shoulder, staring up at his new and much larger bubble buddy.  “Now you can’t hurt my friends, and we’re gonna…uh,” he trailed off as Jasper loomed over him, her lips peeling back with rage.

_“Let me **OUT!”**_

“Aaaaaah!”  Steven threw up his arms to protect his head, and when his skull wasn’t immediately smashed, he snuck a peek.

Jasper was staring down at the bubble-within-a-bubble that was protecting Steven.  She roared and punched at both sides of the bubble, rolling it around the room.  _“This—is—cheating, Rose!”_

“Steven,” Amethyst yelled frantically, leaping from the ceiling and tackling the bubble, “I got you, I got…whoaaa!”  The bubble rolled, squashed her up against the wall, then banged around the room as Jasper ran inside it, trying to punch, grapple, and pounce on Steven’s secondary bubble.

The door, in the middle of closing, snapped open again when Pearl thrust her spear through and leapt after it.  “What in the name of… _Jasper?_ How did _you_ get…oh _never mind,_ Steven, let her out of that bubble so we can take her down!  Again!”

“I can’t,” Steven wailed, as he was bounced around the inside of his own bubble like a hamster in a ball falling down a flight of Escher stairs.  “I have to make sure she doesn’t hurt—anyone—else…AHH!”

The double bubble burst through the door and out into the beach house, smashing the coffee table, crunching into the counter, and knocking Sea Explorer Gal flying.  Standing in the doorway, covered in grease and with his hair in a ponytail, Greg Universe stood frozen with horror.  _“Steven?”_

“Dad, _run,”_ Steven cried as Jasper stopped her rampage and stared at Greg with dawning recognition in her eyes.  “This really didn’t turn out like that one story we read with the lion and the thorn and the paw and the…”

A blue hand snatched the flying Sea Explorer Gal out of the air.

“…Lapis?”

Lapis shouldered Greg roughly outside and slammed the door on him.  “Greg, I’m sorry, but you _can’t_ be in here.  You’ll get hurt.”  She set Sea Explorer Gal down and spread her wings aggressively.  Outside, the ocean began to roar.

Jasper blinked, then started laughing.  “What?  Now the _weakling_ wants to fight me?”

“I’m not going to _fight_ you, Jasper,” Lapis said, her voice tight with desperation and rage.  “I’m going to _kill you.”_

“Big talk.”

“Steven,” Lapis said, “let her out.”

“No!”

“I said _let her out!”_

“Lapis, please,” Steven begged, and then froze as the windows of the house shattered inwards.  _“Dad, get down!”_

With a yelp, Greg threw himself flat.  Enormous jets of water smashed through the windows of the beach house, the door, even the hole in the roof.  Hiding under Steven’s bed, Peridot screeched with panic as a passing jet of water caught her and tossed her into the kitchen.  The Crystal Gems, charging out of the Burning Room, were blasted flat against the walls of the house, struggling to free themselves.  The door to the Temple snapped shut.

Lapis walked slowly forwards, a shadow falling over her as an enormous water jet slammed Jasper and Steven’s bubble up against the Temple door.  “Steven, I’m not going to ask you again.  _Let.  Her.  Out.”_

“NO!  Lapis, listen to yourself!Why are you so afraid of her?!  Why won’t you _talk to me?!”_ Steven yelled.  “I’m your _friend!_ I want to help you!That’s what friends _do!”_

For a moment, the enormous pressure let up, and Lapis stumbled back, the colour draining from her face.  “Steven…I can’t…”

“Lapis,” Steven said, as quietly as he could over the rush of water and the shouts and screams of the other Gems as they tried to free themselves, “whatare you so afraid of?”

Lapis lifted a hand, then snatched it back again.  “It doesn’t _matter,_ Steven, just, _please,_ let me settle this with her!  Once and for all!”

“Yeah, _Steven,”_ Jasper snarled down at him, picking up his smaller bubble and shaking it ferociously, “let me out so I can settle with this scum…”

 _“Don’t you **touch** him!”  _Lapis summoned another gigantic water surge, smashing the bubble so hard against the Temple door that the structure around it began to crack.  “Steven, please, I’m _begging_ you…just let me do this…for you…”

Steven squeezed his eyes and mouth shut, turned, and shoved his hand against the bubble’s surface.  It gave way under his fingers, creating a Steven-hand-shaped round hole, and he reached for the surface of Jasper’s bubble, which was barely an inch away.

“That’s it,” Jasper gritted out, never taking her eyes off Lapis.  “Let me out, so I can deal with _this_ …”

Steven slammed his hand flat against the Temple door.  “I wish me and Lapis had someplace safe to talk this out!  Come on Mom’s room _please!”_

The door snapped open, and an enormous jet of water blasted Jasper and Steven into a world of soft pink clouds.

There were distant screams and cries of _Steven,_ but as the door slid shut, a final blast of water rammed its way through, and Lapis landed hard on her hands and knees, dragging herself upright amid the pink, fluffy atmosphere of Rose’s Room.


	13. Rose's Room (Reprise, Major Key)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven just wants to talk to Lapis.
> 
> Rose's Room has other ideas about what that conversation will look like, informed by what's on Lapis' mind. And it's not pretty...
> 
> (This chapter is the one with the strong warnings for implied abuse (emotional/psychological), body horror, and Rose's Room using Steven's dream-brain-voyage in 'Chille Tid' as the basis for a cozy heart to heart, so tws for unreality and psychological horror are here too. Please proceed with caution.)

The Room rippled for a moment, and then Steven found himself standing in the silent, undamaged Big Donut.  Outside, it was black, starless night.  The freezer full of Lion Lickers, despite being brightly lit, wasn’t making a soothing humming noise.  Lars and Sadie were nowhere to be seen.  Steven and Lapis were alone on a soundless stage shaped like a donut shop.

She looked around wildly.  “Steven!  Where is she?  What—what _is_ this place?  This isn’t the Big Donut!”

“It’s my mom’s Room,” Steven said, squinting around suspiciously.  “It’s great, except for when it’s actually kind of shady and does sneaky stuff.”  He relaxed.  “But Jasper’s not here, and you are, so maybe this time it’ll be easy!”  He trotted over to a table and pulled out a chair for Lapis, affecting a moustache twirl and a French accent.  “If ze Mademoiselle would _chair_ to be seated?”

Lapis just stared at him.

“Haha, you know, chair?  Care?  We’ll work on that.”  Steven’s smile faded.  “Lapis…please come sit down?  I feel like since this whole thing with the robots started happening, we haven’t really had much of a chance to spend time together!  First there was Peridot, and then there was the robots, and then more Peridot, then more robots…”  He trailed off with a sigh.  “I wanted us to be beach summer fun buddies, but…I haven’t been able to give you any beach summer fun at all.”

Lapis was still and silent so long that Steven, worried, got up and poked her.  She grabbed her side.  “Wha—Steven, what did you do that for?”

“Sometimes the Room likes to do a sneaky people-switcheroo on me.  This one time, with Connie…”

“Steven, we can’t…she’s _in_ here!  _With_ us!  I’m not going to sit down at a, a donut store table and start _chatting_ with you like nothing’s wrong!”

“I…I didn’t want to ‘chat’, Lapis,” Steven said carefully.  “I wanted to have a serious buddy heart-to-heart.  Maybe with a musical interlude?”

“You don’t understand…Steven, I can’t _do_ this!  I _have_ to deal with her!  _Right now!”_

The windows of the Big Donut suddenly blew inwards, and the shards froze in the air in a glittery tableau about a foot into the room.  When Steven looked up, Lapis was crouching protectively over him, and Jasper was standing behind the counter, a look of flat puzzlement on her face.  “A single-Gem simulator?  _Here,_ on _Earth?_ How is this even…”  She caught sight of Lapis and bared her teeth.  “Never mind, who _cares?_ It’s just you and me now, _brat,_ and I’m going to finish y—“

Jasper wasn’t able to finish her sentence before she was knocked clean through the wall into the break room by a massive blue boxing glove.  Lapis, her fists clenched, was still in a boxer’s stance when silence and the fall of plaster was the only sound in the room; a moment later, she spread out her attack form, her wings appearing and turning into an array of swords as Jasper burst out of the rubble with a roar and snapped her helmet into place.

Steven leapt in front of her.  “Lapis, no, not in here!  You can’t do this!”

Lapis simply darted around him; when he grabbed her arm and clung to it grimly, she shook him off, hard enough to knock Steven head over heels.  He hit the back of his head on the Big Donut’s door and watched, dazed, as Lapis charged Jasper and they clashed.

Jasper, in full control of herself rather than cracked, was physically much faster than Lapis, and didn’t fall for feints, but Lapis’ time training with Connie had done _something_ to her combat technique.  She didn’t look away or back down, and while at one point Jasper caught her a blow that knocked her into one of the freezers, she created an enormous clone of Jasper herself, which bulled into the original and started slugging, while Lapis herself got back on her feet and kept moving.  Once she was in Jasper’s blind spot, the clone vanished, and Jasper turned to find swords coming at her from every direction.

She managed to dodge, smash, or shield herself from all of them, but the swords became buzzsaws singing down Lapis’ arms, then giant fists.  Whenever Jasper fought her way to Lapis’ position, Lapis would surround herself with water-clones and move, her gaze never leaving Jasper’s gem.  Sweat was dripping down her face and her jaw was tight with effort, but her control held.  At one point, a barrage of arrows turned into a water-clone of Connie Maheswaran, leaping through the air in silent concentration with a blade ready in her hand.

Jasper caught the clone and smashed it with her helmet.  She was reeling by now, scratched up and scraped all over, and while Lapis hadn’t managed to land any critical hits, Jasper looked shaken.  She stared at Lapis with a mixture of confusion, terror, and hatred.  “How did you get _any_ good for this?”

“I learned a thing or two from your so-called _defective_ Pearl and one of those humans you hate so much.  And…” Lapis shook her head and steeled herself.  “And did you forget, how long we were fused?  I _know_ you, Jasper.”

_“You really don’t,”_ Jasper snarled.  “There was always that one thing, wasn’t it?”

Lapis went still.  “What thing,” she said, her voice flat.

“The reason you couldn’t control me even with all your strength, for what _that_ was worth.  The reason I couldn’t get loose and destroy you, not without _months_ of fighting.  You were afraid I’d find that one thing, wouldn’t you?  The part of yourself you were hiding from me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I got everything else!  More than I _wanted._ All your fears, all your pathetic little dreams of a Homeworld that doesn’t _exist_ anymore, _brighten up,_ and your sad obsession with this…this _mistake.”_ Jasper gestured sharply at Steven, who was getting to his feet while holding his head.  “But there was _something_ you wouldn’t let me see.  _That’s_ why every minute was a fight.  You were afraid I’d find out what your _greatest_ weakness was, so you held it back…”

“And what about you?” Lapis’ hands balled into fists.  “What were _you_ trying to hide so hard from me?  You threw everything else you could at me.  What was left?  A break in your armour?  What was _your_ weakness, besides your _ego_ and your sick need to hurt people?”

“ _I don’t have one,”_ Jasper snarled, and spin-charged Lapis, who barely dodged, stumbling out of the way, her water attacks splashing to the floor.

Jasper smashed through the store-front, and the entire Big Donut began to fall apart around them, poofing into pink clouds, little bursts of colour in nothingness.  Then all three of them began to fall, among a shower of glass shards that still hadn’t dissolved.

In the blackness, Steven reached out and grabbed Lapis’ wrist.  “Lapis, _stop it right now!”_

Lapis turned to him, opening her mouth, and then stopped, eyes going wide with horror.  “Steven, you’re _bleeding…”_

“You whacked me into the door!  What did you _think_ was gonna happen?  Lapis, this isn’t okay anymore!”

“Steven…”

“I just want you to tell me what’s _wrong,”_ Steven burst out furiously, tears in his eyes.

* * *

 

They landed in ankle-deep water with a splash.

Steven lay on his back for a moment, staring up at nothing but darkness.  The water had a greenish cast to it, as though they were standing on glass lit by green fire from far below.  Steven blinked and sat up, looking around.  “Lapis?”

She was a few meters away, lying half-propped up much as she’d been the first time he met her in person, when she fell to the sand.  The glass shards still hung in the air around her.  She sat up and cut her shoulder on one.  “Ow!  Steven?”

“I’m right here!  Steven got up and tried to come over to her, but the shards rearranged themselves so that he was jabbed every time he tried.  “Ow!  Hey!  _Room!_ This is not okay!  I want fluffy teddy bears and someplace that’s not so, uh, creepily green.  Don’t make me come, uh, up there!  Somewhere!”  There was no change in the scenery.  Steven looked around with his hands on his hips, his anger fading and replaced by worry.  “Pink whale?  Fake Connie?  Hello?  Anybody?”

Lapis was starting to tremble uncontrollably.  “Steven…Steven, you have to get out of here, I know what this place is.  You have to go!  _Now!”_

Steven glanced around at the seemingly endless expanse of darkness and green-lit water, and then squared his shoulders.  “No!  I’m not leaving you alone here, and I’m not…AAHHH!”

A sudden rumble knocked him off-balance and into the water.  Between himself and Lapis, a familiar shape rose up, glowing sickly green and dripping.

“M-Malachite?” Steven whispered.

The enormous fusion turned to face him.

Malachite’s eyes were blank mirrors, her mouth sagging open horribly on one side as her flesh melted away from the jaw.  The dripping was actually parts of her body melting off of what looked like black bone.  She held out a front hand to Steven, her two-as-one voice dull and flat.  _“Steven.  We’ve missed you.  Come be with us.”_

Distantly, Steven could hear Lapis screaming threats and imprecations, pleas to leave Steven alone.

_“Come down into the dark with us.  It’s nice.  It’s quiet.”_ Malachite grinned.  Steven didn’t remember her teeth being nearly as long and sharp and uneven, like those of a hagfish.  _“There’s nothing to be afraid of.  It’s wonderful…”_

A flash of blue light burst through Malachite’s enormous torso.

As the chimerical fusion began to dissolve into goop, Steven barely had time to register Lapis, sliced all over from the shards, holding what looked like a water amalgam of Pearl’s spear and Amethyst’s whip-handle, with Garnet’s gauntlets encasing her arms to the elbows.  She dissolved it and ran through the melting Malachite to Steven, reaching for him.

She almost made it.

One of Malachite’s eyes popped up, flat and perfectly round, and blocked Lapis’ path to Steven.  When she tried to dart around it, the shards from the Big Donut replica’s windows, suddenly become much larger, whined through the air, smashing into the water and blossoming upwards in jagged panels of reflective glass, forming an impenetrable barrier with Lapis at its center.

Steven pounded on the glass furiously, tried to head-butt it, yelped, and then summoned his shield and threw it.  He was forced to duck when it whanged off the glass and spun back towards him, then away into the darkness.  He went back to trying to punch it; dimly, he could see Lapis running from mirror to mirror.  They were growing upwards, merging with each other, encasing Lapis and rising up into the darkness above until it was impossible to see the top of them.  Like a trapped moth, Lapis fluttered at each mirrored panel, then tried to fly high enough, but splashed down again into the water after about thirty seconds.

Steven growled and looked around fiercely.  “Room!  This absolutely 100% is _not funny_ anymore, _let me in!”_

A hole appeared in the water directly under Steven’s feet.  He barely had time to yelp before he fell in.

It shot him back out on the inside the mirror barrier, upside-down and feet-first, and he floated in the air for a moment before plopping facedown into the glowing green water.  “Ow!  Room!”  He trailed off when he saw Lapis.

Her wings had vanished, and she was curled in on herself, her hands clutched over her ears, shaking all over.

Steven approached her cautiously, one hand held out.  “Lapis?  Lapis, I know this is scary, but I’ll figure out how to make the Room stop doing this and then we’ll go back and…”

“Steven, don’t you get it?!”

Steven snatched his hand back.  Lapis was staring at him with a mixture of terror and despair, tears leaking out of her eyes and hands pressed tightly against the sides of her head, as if she could prevent her own brain from flying out of her ears.  “I’m…Lapis, I’m sorry, I just wanted us to be able to talk and everything went wrong, and the Room is being really creepy, this is all my fault…”

“Steven!  You were in my _mind!_ You told me you were dreaming, when you talked to me while I was Malachite, but you were _in my mind!_ If the Room really is a single-Gem simulator, it…it knows who I am, it knows what I’m _like,_ it remembers me from _you!”_ Lapis turned away from him and pressed her face into her knees, freeing a hand to make a sharp gesture at their surroundings.  “This isn’t _you_ , Steven.  It’s _me.”_

Steven stood, frozen, his own eyes welling up with tears.  “Is…is this a beach summer buddy breakup?”

“Steven, you’ve got to make the Room take you out of here, you don’t know what…” Lapis began, and suddenly made a sound as if she’d swallowed her own tongue.

The mirror-barrier suddenly reflected, in all its millions of self-enclosed facets, not Steven and Lapis as they were, crouched together, but thousands upon thousands of mirror-eyed Lapises.

Lapis seemed to shrink in on herself in terror.  “Oh no.  Oh no no nonono, please, no…”

One of the closest ones said, in a voice that wasn’t Lapis’ (or Jasper’s, or anyone Steven knew or had ever known or heard before), _“Why are you always so mopey?  You’re a real challenge to spend time with, you know that, right?”_

Lapis froze.

Another one said, in a different, higher voice, _“Stop complaining about it.  If you keep whining, someone will report you.  Just relax.  If it’s not happening to you, what’s the big deal?”_

Steven stared back at the rank upon rank of water-Lapises, all of which were smiling unpleasantly.  Lapis’ teeth were starting to chatter.

Another Lapis, another voice: _“What are you so upset about?  Were you expecting to get a Diamond as your patron?  Puh-lease.  You’re nowhere near that good.  In fact, you’re kind of disappointing…”_

“Stop it,” Lapis choked out.

Another: _“Why aren’t you laughing, Lapis?  It’s just a joke!”_

Another: _“Lapis, that really wasn’t funny.  You’re just embarrassing yourself.”_

Another: _“Sorry, Lapis, I can’t help you.  I’m not your friend.  We just work together, and I don’t have that kind of influence…anyway, I’m sorry.  Goodbye.”_

Lapis reached out, almost unconsciously, for the mirror-Lapis that had said that, but it faded away as soon as it finished speaking.  “No…no, please, don’t leave me alone with her, don’t let her…”

Another Lapis opened its mouth.  Steven, increasingly flummoxed and frantic, expected it to be Jasper, but the voice was gentle, smooth, and alien to him.  _“You really must stop carrying on so.  It will spoil your features.”_

“I don’t _want_ to go to Earth,” Lapis screamed suddenly, whirling on it and trying to strike it with a water-blast.  The water slithered harmlessly off the undamaged mirror.  “Please…please, you _promised…_ ”

_“I will not hear further arguments, nor be embarrassed in front of Blue Diamond.  You may be a Gem of some talent, but no one has taught you manners.  You will lower your head before the authority, and speak only when spoken to, and if you behave well, I shall be very happy, and if I am happy…”_

“…then I’m happy too,” Lapis echoed, her voice barely a whisper.  She suddenly lurched to her feet, stumbled over, and began punching the mirror savagely to no effect, screaming, _“NO!  No, I’m not,_ I’m not, I’m not…”  The image in the mirror changed and she started back, trembling with terror.  “Oh no, no…”

The figure that formed in the mirror was not a mirror-eyed Lapis.  It looked very strange to Steven, bulbous and distorted as if it were a failed water-clone.  It opened glowing blue eyes and turned them on Lapis, who shivered, dropped her bruised hands, and fell to her knees, staring up at it.  Steven could see her face reflected in the mirror’s surface, but it was mostly the blue-eyed figure, taking up an enormous amount of space and height.

Deceptively softly, it said, _“You seem to have gotten above yourself.  You were always, and forever, mined to be a weapon.  It has only been the recent stability of the Empire that allowed you to play at being some one-karat_ artiste, _of all things.  A sculptor.  Hah.  Your patron may have considered your poor control and lack of decorum amusing.  I assure you that I do not.”_

“I don’t want to fight…” Lapis buried her face in her hands.  “Please, _please_ don’t make me…I was going to go home…she promised me we were going to go home…”

_“Stop snivelling,”_ snarled the figure, and for a split second it became a clearly-delineated Jasper, far more massive than life and snarling with enormous, sharp teeth, before sagging back into the bulbous water-figure.  _“Even your dilettante of a patron is well aware that our stability is threatened, which is why she surrendered you to the war effort.  Every Gem, even down to the least, most malformed Pearl, must and_ will _fight, against the greatest threat Gemkind has ever known.”_

“I…I thought Rose…”

_“Rose **Quartz** is a traitor and a perverse maniac who must be made an example of.  It’s simply our good fortune, and her mistake, that she chose to make her move on a world with a surface primarily made of water, when we have you in our arsenal.”_

“Please don’t make me…I don’t know how…”

_“You will learn,”_ breathed the bulbous figure, _“very quickly indeed.  Guards, take her to the armory, and then to the cells.  One sign of defiance, and you are authorized to…”_

“NO!  No, please, I’ll be good, I’ll go quietly, please, don’t, don’t…!”

_“LIAR!”_

The mirror smashed.  Lapis looked up, her eyes swollen with tears, at Steven’s shield, embedded in the glass; a second later, it popped into sparkles.  Then another one smashed into an enormous mirror panel, shards raining down to reveal a backing of black stone.  Another shield, another broken mirror.  And another, and another.

Lapis turned to see Steven, shaking with unaccustomed fury, his face tear-stained, as he generated and winged shield after shield, Frisbee-style, into every one of the mirrors encircling and trapping them, smashing the glass to pieces with strength born of anger.

“Big… _jerky…_ McJerkface… _liars!_ All of you are a bunch of, of _creeps_ and I don’t know what dilettante even _means_ but I bet you’re all that too!”

“Steven,” Lapis said weakly.

“Lapis is _not_ hard to spend time with,” Steven roared as glass fell like rain, “she’s cool and funny and brave and she makes fart jokes and really great art-type stuff, even if it’s trying to kill you, and…she doesn’t _have_ to pretend to be happy if she’s not, and, and she doesn’t have to do what anybody like _you_ says!  She’s not a _weapon!_ What’s _wrong_ with you?”  Steven turned to her, sobbing and panting with the effort of creating so many shields, his hands balled into fists at his side.  “What’s wrong with them?  Is this what was in your brain?  Why are they so…?”

Lapis staggered over to him, grabbed his arm, and turned him to face the last unbroken mirror, the one formed from Malachite’s eye.  A long-fingered green hand was reaching through the mirror, and Steven could see those hagfish teeth.  He shivered.  “Uhhh, I thought she…melted…?”

“Steven, get behind me,” Lapis said, and then suddenly Malachite lunged out of the mirror, snatching both of them up one-handed.

She wasn’t melting any more, but her grin was too wide, her teeth too uneven and needle-like. _“Are you trying to get away?”_

Lapis and Steven both struggled to prise her off, pushing and shoving at her enormous fingers, but her grip was like iron, her skin cold and clammy.  Lapis squeezed her eyes shut and shouted up at her, “Leave us alone!  Leave _Steven_ alone!  _Why won’t you just go away??”_

_“Go away?”_ Malachite chuckled softly, a distorted sound that sent shivers up Steven’s spine.  _“How can I go away, Lapis Lazuli?  I’m_ part _of you.”_

“You’re just some—some leftover mental _garbage_ from being fused with _Jasper…_ ”

_“Oh, I see.  You think it’s **all** her fault?” _Malachite gestured with her free hand.  A water-figure emerged in her palm: Jasper, scaled down until she was shorter than Steven.  _“There’s a little echo of her in here, with us, but Lapis…”_ That mouth drew up at the sides until it looked like Malachite’s grin was surrounding most of her head, squeezing her eyes into narrow malevolence.  _“Everything that keeps me in here, in your head…it’s all you.  Why do you think I’m so strong?”_

Lapis sobbed suddenly.  “I just want you to go away…”

_“What did you use to hold me together?”_ Malachite pulled Steven and Lapis so close to her face that she would have been cross-eyed had she had pupils; as it was, Steven could see the two of them reflected in the unpleasantly organic curve of her eyeballs.

“I…I…”

_“What did both of you use?  What can hold a fusion together?  Did you make me out of love, out of protectiveness, out of confidence?”_

“No,” Lapis whispered.  “No, we…we made you out of rage, and fear…”

_“And?”_

“And…mistrust.”

_“And you wonder why I’m still here with you?”_

“I don’t _want_ you anymore…I don’t want…all this…”

Steven made a noise like a deflating balloon as Malachite’s grip tightened. 

Lapis fought her hands free and started beating frantically on the fusion’s enormous fist.  “Stop it!  You’re hurting Steven!”

_“No,”_ Malachite whispered, _“ **you’re** the one who’s hurting him.”_

“I won’t let you!  I’ll _stop_ you!”

_“Really?  You’ll stop me?”_ Malachite dropped her voice to a hiss.  _“You won’t even **look** at me.”_

Lapis shivered, digging her fingers into Malachite’s hand, then took a deep breath and made herself open her eyes.

She and Malachite stared at one another.  The enormous green fusion began to warp, her fangs shrinking, the shape and contortion of her body becoming more like the Malachite of reality and less like the Room-created abomination.  Malachite’s grin was still unpleasant, just not uncanny.  _“Well?”_

“I…I see you,” Lapis said distantly.

_“Not very pretty, am I?  You and Jasper, you’re a real pair.  You just didn’t know it before fusing, and in me, you both got exactly what you wanted, and what you didn’t want.  I’m a disaster.  A mistake that’ll stay with both of you the rest of your lives.”_

Lapis opened her mouth, clearly ready to defy Malachite’s assessment of her similarity with Jasper, before sagging unhappily.  “I guess…you’re right.”

Malachite’s grip loosened slightly.  _“Oh?”_

“I’ve been trying so hard to pretend that…she’s the one who made everything wrong and horrible.  I was so angry, and so afraid, and I wanted…I want to hurt one of the people who hurt me, and then Steven was in danger, I'd already failed him so many times because I was too cowardly to step in, and Jasper…gave me the perfect opening.” Lapis covered her face with her hands.  “Steven, I didn’t want you to see this!  I didn’t want you to see how…how _ugly_ I am on the inside…”

Steven managed to get an arm free as Malachite gave them a little more breathing room.  Very carefully, he laid it on Lapis’ shoulder.

She turned her tear-stained face to him.  “Steven?”

Steven took a deep breath and looked at Malachite.  “I get it.  Being a fusion made of pain is probably pretty scary and sad.  And your teeth are scary and _you’re_ pretty huge and scary.”

_“Of course I am.”_

Steven held up a finger quickly.  “ _But,_ two out of the three fusions I’ve met that are made out of _my family_ are actually pretty huge and scary, too.  I bet it’s not easy being a fusion that’s not like Garnet, and especially not one that’s like you.  Everything about the Gems you’re made of has to come out and _be_ you, even the stuff that hurts, and when you’re a giant woman, you can’t exactly hide that hurt!  So you get,” he made a vague gesture, “six arms and no legs and, no offense, a cool but sort of weird bug-body.”

Lapis started to sag in Malachite’s grip, her mouth open in disbelief.  “Steven…this Malachite, here, she’s _me._ How can you not…hate me?  Be afraid of me?”

Steven managed to squirm around enough to take her hand.  “Lapis, I’m not scared of you…okay, I’m scared of you hurting yourself, or you turning into somebody you don’t like, somebody who thinks they don’t deserve to be free or have croissonuts or friends who care about them!  But I’m not scared of _you!_ You made fart noises at Mayor Dewey!  You’re my friend.  I _know_ you’re a good person.  But you don’t have to be perfect!  Even really good people can do and say some pretty bad stuff when they're hurting,” he added, almost to himself.

“Do you…really mean that?”

“I do!  And I don’t want you to think you have to hurt yourself or get yourself poofed or cracked, protecting me from _anyone._ Even if that ‘anyone’ is you.”

Malachite exhaled, her distorted features softening slightly.

Lapis looked at Steven’s hand, then at Steven’s face.  After a moment of warring with herself, she pulled him into a hug.  Then she looked up at Malachite.  “I see you now.”

_“Yes.”_

“I know you’re there.  I won’t let you rule what I do…but I won’t spend all my time fighting you, either.” Lapis stared her in the eyes.  “You _are_ a part of me, now, and I can’t run away from you, or destroy you.”

_“No.”_

“But you’re not all of me.”

_“No.”_

“Please let go of me, and Steven,” Lapis said quietly.

The enormous fusion set them down in the shallow water, and behind her, the eye-mirror cracked.  As Malachite began to poof into clouds, section by section, she said, _“I’ll be here when you need me.”_

“I don’t,” Lapis said, and then, after a moment, “and…I do.  I guess.  But I won’t let you chain me down anymore.  If I need you…it’ll be on my terms.”

For a moment, Steven thought Malachite’s uncharacteristically small, pleased smile looked familiar, and then her head and upper torso poofed.

Lapis sagged.  “That’s it.  It’s…she’s not…I’m…”

The mirrors around them imploded.  Overhead, an enormous sky, gaudy pink with sunset and puffy clouds, blossomed in the space of a heartbeat.  Under Steven and Lapis’ bare feet, white sand appeared, an endless sweeping wave of dunes met by the clean blue surf of the ocean, gently lapping at their toes.

* * *

 

“…I’m free,” Lapis said.  She looked down at Steven.  “I…hurt you.  You’re still bleeding.”

Steven visibly suppressed his instinct to assure her it was okay.  Instead, he stared out across the illusively still ocean solemnly.  “I know.  I think I hurt you too.  I wanted to talk to you about what was bothering you so badly…I didn’t think about whether you _wanted_ to talk about it.”  He sighed and looked at their shared reflection in the gentle surf.  “I was just really scared you were going to get hurt.  Or do something you were gonna regret.”

“I’m sorry.”  Lapis inhaled deeply and nodded, then reached down and touched Steven’s forehead.  “You really are going to have a…what did Sadie call it?  A goose egg from that door.”

“I’m a tough guy.”  Steven managed a smile.  “I’ll get over it…”

Lapis knelt down and pulled him into a tight hug.  “Well, this is a beach.  And I guess it’s still summer.”  She sniffed and wiped her eyes, letting him have a little room to look at her.  “Are we still buddies?”

Steven’s smile became very real and very bright, and he hugged her back tightly.  “You bet your buttons!”

Lapis held onto him for a moment, and then suddenly she paused and burst into slightly hysterical laughter.  “Oh, _oh,_ I finally got it!  I understand now!   _Chair to be seated,_ like ‘care’ except you were pulling out a chair…!”

“Yeah, that was a great pun,” Steven agreed, wiping his eyes and smiling.  He hesitated.  “I wish the Crystal Gems and Dad and Lion and Peridot could’ve heard it.  They were pretty freaked out when we went in here.  Maybe we could go out and bring them back in here too, then we’d have the perfect beach party, except we’d be missing Connie, so not perfect, and food, the Room is kind of lousy at food that isn’t made of clouds and eating clouds stinks…”

There was a pink flash which forced Steven and Lapis to shield their eyes.

Lion leapt out of a portal, grunted, and sat down hard, causing Amethyst, Pearl, Garnet, and Greg to roll off his back.  Peridot and Connie remained clinging onto his mane like grim death, even though Connie was weighted down by the cheeseburger backpack and Pearl's dueling sword.

Steven gave an excited gasp and did a little dance, then paused and glared suspiciously at the new arrivals.  “Is that you?”

“It’s us,” Garnet affirmed, straightening up and dusting herself off.

“But is it you-you, or is it _Room-_ you?” Steven demanded, crossing his arms.

“Steven,” Connie said firmly, “I still think the ending of the _Unfamiliar Familiar_ series was handled poorly and I wish the author had put more thought into her theme and plot coherency.  I think she was just flailing around for a way to tie things up and a typical fantasy wedding sequence was the best she could do on a deadline!  But I definitely agree with you now that Lisa and Archemicarus getting together _was_ foreshadowed from Book One, and the wedding cake did sound delicious.  For the first ten pages.”  She paused and looked uneasy.  “Did I…pass?  I came by the beach house to say hi and everybody was _freaking out._ ”

Steven immediately turned starry-eyed.  _“Connie!  It really is you!”_ He ran to her and leapt on her, and then looked at the rest of the Gems.  “Dad!  You won’t believe what we’ve been doing, Lapis fought Jasper and then Lapis and I fought her brain—Lapis’ brain, like, from the inside, not Jasper’s giant mutant brain, that would be gross—and Malachite was there, and, whoa, Garnet, what happened to your gloves?”

Garnet glanced down at her dented, singed gauntlets, almost guiltily, and vanished them quickly.  “When you disappeared in here with Lapis and Jasper, we got a little…upset.  We tried everything to get the room to open.  We worked for two hours, and then Lion appeared and let us get on him and brought us here.”

“Garnet completely smashed the Temple door _and_ a big hole in the side of the mountain,” Amethyst informed Steven.  “It would have been pretty cool, except, I was kinda running around in circles screaming at that point so I didn’t exactly notice until after she already did it.”

“Oh, it’s nothing a little elbow grease and technical know-how won’t fix,” Pearl said, desperately cheerfully.  “Why, it’s hardly…a…” She looked down at Steven and suddenly burst into tears and snatched him up into her arms.  _“Oh Steven we couldn’t open the door and we thought Jasper was going to smash you to strawberry jam!  Steve-he-hennn!  I’m so glad you’re alright!”_

This went on for a good two minutes, with Pearl not noticing Greg, Amethyst, and Garnet in order all adding to the “sobbing or otherwise upset parent/parent-substitute hug” until Greg blew his nose on Pearl’s sash.  She gave him a mortally wounded look and allowed him full Steven access while she went to wash her sash out in the ocean.  After a couple of tries, she gave up in disgust and simply formed herself a new, Greg-snot-free sash out of light, and then hesitated, letting the water run through her hands.  “It’s been so long since I was in here…I’d forgotten how real everything feels.”

“Why,” Peridot said, descending carefully from Lion, “is it all so… _pink?”_   She squinted at Lapis.  “You look like a thresher orb squad chased you down and tried to inject you with mass-bloat.  Did you kill Jasper after all?”

“No,” Lapis said, after a moment of intent attention from the Crystal Gems and Greg.  “I actually don’t…know where she went.  We lost track of her after the Big Donut disappeared and we all fell down that weird abyss-thing and then Malachite turned up and she was…melting.”

Greg looked at Garnet for clarification.  She shrugged.  “Rose’s Room does a lot of strange things.”

“It wasn’t this weird when we came here for picnics!”  Greg looked around at the Room in dismay.  “It usually looked like this!  Nice and soft and, uh, squishy.”

“I, for one, think we should leave Jasper in here,” Pearl said.  “Bubbling obviously doesn’t work as a containment method…although I have no idea _why_ and that’s a problem I’d like to study at length, though not using that particular subject…”  She snapped out of her thoughts.  “Regardless, it’s a fairly safe method of containment, as long as Steven simply doesn’t use the room, and she’ll be unharmed since she has no way to control the room and it won’t respond to her.”

Garnet looked down at her hands, then at Steven and Lapis.  After a long moment, she said, “I agree.  It’s the _safest_ option.”  She turned to Lion.  “Take us home.”

Lion flopped onto his back.

“I said take us home.”

Lion twisted around and began to lick the inside of his back leg.  Steven yelped and pushed his face away.  “Nono, bad Lion!  That’s not polite!”

“We might’ve been too big of a load for him,” Greg offered.  “He’s had to do a lot of work lately, and four Gems, a kid, and a pretty heavy fella like myself can’t have been easy on the old muscles.”

Steven waved a hand.  “It’s okay, lemme try it this way.”  He cleared his throat.  “Room, I want to go back to the Temple.”

Nothing happened.

“Room, I’d like you to open the Temple door, please.”

Nothing continued to happen.

“Room!  Temple door!  Pretty please with peanut butter?”

The door out of Rose’s Room completely failed to appear in a ‘whoomph’ of pink cloud.

Steven ran around in a tiny tight circle of frustration.  “Aw, come _on!_ Am I just not saying it right?”

“It _could_ be that destroying the door got us stuck in this cotton candy purgatory,” Peridot said, with a wary look at Garnet.  “With Jasper.  This is my life now, I accept it.”

“That’s probably your head trauma talking,” Garnet said.  “You’ll start yelling about it in a few hours.”

Steven rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “The Room wouldn’t let us out while we were having that thing, with the mirror, which you don’t have to talk about at all until you’re ready,” he added to Lapis, who avoided the Crystal Gems’ curious looks.  “Mayyybe there’s somebody still in here who has something to figure out too?”

“Or the Temple door’s broken and we’re stuck here until your Lion decides he’s done _playing with clouds,”_ Peridot hissed, jabbing a finger at Lion from a distance.  Lion looked up from where he was chewing on a cloud, examined the offending digit, and then tried to eat it.  Peridot recalled it to her hand with a yelp and stumbled backwards into the surf under Lion’s impassive stare.  “N-now now, nice kitty…feline…thing… _augh_ it’s staring at me with its terrible soulless eyes!”  She ran down the beach, seeking cover, in vain, while Lion went back to his cloud.

Garnet and Pearl both turned to face Lapis, who avoided looking at them.  Garnet cocked her head slightly.  “So you didn’t kill Jasper after all that.”

“I tried.” Lapis said, very quietly.  “It turns out it…it wasn’t really her I was afraid of.”

"And you defended Steven," Garnet said, and then paused when Pearl laid a hand gently on her forearm. 

Pearl’s other hand went to the back of her neck.  “Um…I can understand your, hmm, prioritizing the safety of someone you care for over logic...or other people's feelings.”  She snuck a look at Connie, who was listening open-mouthed in equal parts horror and rapt glee to Steven’s highly edited tale of the fight in the Big Donut, the mirrors, and Malachite, complete with sound effects and Steven trying to mimic Room-Malachite’s distorted teeth with his fingers.  “Or your concern for the well-being of others.  You can do a lot of damage…”

“I’m sorry,” Lapis whispered.

“Oh, no, no no no, I don’t mean _physical_ damage,” Pearl said hastily.  “You can hurt people you love, or who look up to you, without even realizing what you’re doing until it’s too late!”  She paused, lost in thought, before coming up for air.  “Although we are going to need you to help repair all those holes you made in the beach house around the windows and doors.  It’s mostly just the screens and frames that need replacing, but Greg can’t be expected to do _all_ of it on his own, especially since he can’t really help, ahem, Acts of Gem.”

“I wasn’t talking about physical damage, either,” Lapis said.  “I know you were trying to reach out to me.”  She glanced from Garnet to Pearl, then over at Amethyst, who had obligingly shape-shifted a hagfish face to help Steven get his visual point across to Connie and the increasingly horrified Greg.  “In your own, uh, special ways.”

Garnet laid a hand on Lapis’ shoulder.  Lapis looked at it in confusion, then up at the attached Gem.  “I’m impressed.  Fighting and destroying an enemy…that doesn’t always take real strength.  Confronting yourself, and your fears, finding a way to be strong in the face of that…”  Garnet nudged Pearl gently and offered her a tiny smile.  “You could say that’s ‘strong in the real way’, I guess.”

Pearl blushed blue and shifted from foot to foot, grinning unabashedly, before composing herself and looking at Lapis.  “So, ah, do you still think we’re enemies?”

“No.  I think we want the same thing.  To protect Steven…and I guess Earth, too.”

“You guess?”

Garnet cleared her throat loudly.

“Yes, I know, Garnet, I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about Earth either…until Rose showed me how beautiful it could be,” Pearl added, suddenly lost in starry-eyed reflection.

Lapis glanced at Garnet when Pearl’s silent and obviously rapt reverie went on for more than thirty seconds.  “Is she always like this about Rose Quartz?”

“Mm…did you ever see Rose in person?”

“I saw some unflattering holo-caricatures,” Lapis admitted, very quietly so that Pearl didn’t hear.  “And the portrait in your house.”

Garnet grinned.  “She was a very…arresting Gem, physically and psychologically.  That portrait doesn’t really do her justice.”

Amethyst left off her impressions and sidled over to Lapis.  “You look pretty rough.”

Lapis nodded.

“So you didn’t squish Jasper into gravel.  That’s cool.  Up for going to find her, or do you wanna hang here with Lion and the sea and, y’know, junk, while we go look for her?”

Lapis took a deep breath and sighed.  “No, I’ll help you.  I’d like to help.  There’s something I need to…say to her.  Maybe.”

“If it’s ‘bite my butt’,” Amethyst said, slowly starting to grin, “I’m happy to deliver the message.”

Lapis muffled a slightly hysterical laugh.  “N-no, it’s not that…”

“Weiners.”

Lapis almost collapsed laughing.

Peridot, who'd finally come slinking back up the beach and tried hiding behind Greg from Lion, rolled her eyes.  “I suppose that’s _one_ way to deal with their terrifying biology, laughing at it…”

Amethyst smirked and patted Pearl’s shoulder, snapping her out of her trance.  “We got Bob back.”

Pearl sighed with relief and gave Amethyst’s arm a squeeze.  “Yes, we do.  Progression is always preferable to regression!”

“Then let’s progress to wherever Jasper is,” Garnet said, hefting Lion up across her shoulders like an enormous pink fur collar.  “Whether we leave her here or not, I want to see what she’s been up to, and if the Room’s had any unforeseen effect on her, or vice versa.”

As soon as Garnet spoke, the sea and the white dunes vanished, replaced by a rocky brown landscape.  Pink clouds still scudded overhead, but the ground was barren and cracked, and when Steven reached out to poke one of the sparse brown plants growing in the shade of some boulders, it crumbled to dust at his touch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the hardest chapter in the whole work to write (the next one up is the second-hardest); in part because I hate writing based completely on speculation about what characters' backgrounds, and the way the Room's parameters work, when the show hasn't given us much of anything concrete to go on, but mostly because it took a lot of re-writing and trimming before I felt like I'd given Lapis something close to the breakthrough she'd been building up to. Thanks again for all your support and suggestions, folks!
> 
> (For the record, the Room *is* responding entirely to Steven, but its responses are severely affected by the fact that Steven has gone brain-diving in Malachite, so it's more sensitive to and aware of the mindsets and memories of the component Gems than either of them would have preferred.)


	14. War Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven, Connie, Greg, and Amethyst get a history lesson they never wanted, Rose and Yellow Diamond put in an appearance, Garnet is forced to reflect on past mistakes, and Pearl steps up with a truth bomb.
> 
> Lapis pulls it together.
> 
> Jasper breaks, and is broken.

Steven looked at dust stuck to his hands and rubbed it off on his pants, peering around.  “Whoa.”

“It looks like the wasteland in _Angry Fred,”_ Connie breathed. 

Slowly, Garnet and the other Gems turned to look at Steven, who stared at Garnet.  Pearl’s cheerful expression had turned mask-like.

“Steven,” Garnet said carefully, “Rose’s Room should only be listening to you, and obeying your commands.”

“Uhhh…”

“It just ignored you and, possibly, did something I asked it to.”

“It’s been a little kooky lately,” Steven admitted.

“Steven, that’s not a ‘little kooky’,” Pearl said, her distress rising visibly.  “This is _Rose’s_ Room.  It should obey you, and only you…” She hesitated and looked around.  “Did…you just hear something?”

“That’s officially now my _least favourite sentence,”_ Peridot growled, activating her finger-copter, pulling up her legs, and hovering slightly in preparation for a quick getaway.  “What do you even have to ask that anymore?  It’s _always_ something… _nyaaagwagh!”_ Something sleek and black with green tinges leapt at her from the cover of the rocks, forcing her to flail madly out of the way one-handed.

Lion pounced on the new arrival as it landed.  The creature promptly disappeared in a delicate pink mist rather than the usual burst of thick white clouds.

The Crystal Gems immediately summoned their weapons, although Amethyst was a hair slower than Garnet and Pearl, only drawing her whip when she saw the other two react.  Pearl was staring around, large-eyed with horror, while Garnet shivered once, head to toe, and then gritted her teeth.

“Kids,” Pearl said carefully, “Greg, why don’t you just…come here and we’ll, um, make sure you’re…safe…”

Greg shepherded the kids immediately into the middle of the Crystal Gems, in spite of their protests.  “Guys, I don’t get it,” he said, voice rising a little in desperation, “I thought the Room couldn’t hurt you!”

Lapis raised her eyebrows at him, coughed, and emphatically gestured to her arms and shoulders.  “Then what do you call…oh,” she trailed off, as it became clear that the cuts she’d sustained from running through glass shards had vanished.  She twisted around, looking at her back, then at her exposed belly.  “Okay, that’s weird.”

“Greg,” Garnet said after a slightly charged interval, “I’m sorry, but we don’t know exactly what the Room can or can’t do, except that it can’t manage a full-blown simulation of a human settlement without problems—seen that before—and that it _can_ only respond to Steven.”  For a moment, she ground her teeth.  “I _really_ don’t know why it’s decided to put us _here,_ though.  Lion,” she added, turning, “I don’t know what you’re messing around for, but we _need_ to get Steven out of here.”

Lion rolled over on his back and started stretching all of his legs out absently, with a yawn that exposed all of his teeth.

“This is _serious,_ Lion,” Pearl snapped at him, and then came up short.  “I’m yelling at a lion.  What am I doing?  Next thing I’ll start talking to myself…”

“Insanity is a _reasonable_ response to our current situation,” Peridot said crisply, hovering a little higher.

“ _I_ talk to Lion all the time,” Steven protested.  “If you get him a big enough cardboard box, he’s a very good listener.”

“Yeah, Peridork, less smartass, more telling us the next time you see a giant dog-lizard thing creeping on us,” Amethyst snapped up at her, before tugging on Garnet’s gauntlet.  “What _was_ that critter, anyway?”

Garnet looked around at the empty wasteland, her nose wrinkling, mouth forming a straight line.  “We used to call them Spitters.  SSP-XK33s, short for sub-sapient Xenotime-Kosmochlor System species 33.”

“How’d you know?”

A Spitter suddenly slithered out of one of the rock outcrops not ten feet away from the Crystal Gems and attacked.  Pearl threw her spear; the Spitter vomited a plume of acid with pinpoint accuracy, causing the spear to burst, but the distraction gave Garnet enough time to dart forward, flip the creature, and punch down through its soft throat.

Greg yelped and tried to hide the kids’ faces against his stomach, but the Spitter simply misted away under Garnet’s blow, the same way its counterpart had.

Pearl drew another spear from her gem, her hands shaking.

Garnet stood up and turned to look at the rest of the group.  “Rose and I were there, I mean, here.  Almost twenty thousand years ago.”  She looked around at the pink sky, then at the ground.  “I _know_ why we’re here now.  The Room didn’t listen to me.  It didn’t even really listen to Steven.  It’s listening to Steven’s gem.”

There was a fraught silence, and then Steven pulled up his shirt and tapped his gem with a glare.  “Cut it out!”

“Steven,” Lapis began, looking around, “it’s not just you.  This place feels…familiar.”

“Okay,” Greg said, “um, then does anybody who feels like this place is familiar know if there’s, I dunno, a gas station around?  A picnic area?  Someplace that _doesn’t_ have acid monsters.”

“Sorry, Greg,” Garnet said, “it’s pretty much all acid monsters.”

“You know, if you and Rose Quartz were here, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you just microwaved this entire dump’s atmosphere from orbit,” Peridot observed, looking around with a critical eye.

“That’s not how the Homeworld used to do things,” Pearl said, a little thinly.  Amethyst glanced worriedly from her to Garnet.

“Yeah,” Garnet muttered.  “They liked a more…hands-on approach.”

There was a distorted scream from somewhere nearby, over a sharply sloped ridge in the ruined landscape.

“That sounds like a Gem!”  Steven and Connie looked at each other, ducked under Greg, dodged Amethyst, and took off.  About two seconds later, Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst caught them up.

“Dude, like we’re _not_ gonna do anything,” Amethyst scolded Steven.  Lapis caught up a moment later, astride the cantering Lion, with Greg riding behind her, panting and wheezing from his attempted sprint to catch the kids.

“Steven, get your shield ready,” Garnet said.  “Connie, your sword.  And remember that this isn’t just an illusion, it’s an illusion of the _past._ You can’t control what’s happening, you can only protect yourself if it gets too close.”

Amethyst gave her a dismayed look.  _“Seriously?”_

“Garnet, what do you mean a…?”  Steven crested the ridge, popping his shield into place as Connie drew her sword, and then froze as the Crystal Gems caught up with them, weapons at the ready.  _“Jasper?”_

An enormous Spitter had what appeared to be Jasper pinned flat on her back in the dirt, snarling madly in her face as she tried to grapple its jaws open.  Acid dripped down and left singed circles on her skin.  Sweat poured down her face as she started to visibly weaken.  Something unhinged in the Spitter’s jaw and the acid drips began to increase.

Steven lunged forward, but Garnet caught him quickly and held him in her guantlets.  He tried to squirm out of her grip, his expression turning to outraged betrayal as Connie began to protest in shock.  “ _Garnet!_ It’s gonna kill Jasper!  We have to save her!”

“Steven,” Garnet said, “there’s _nothing_ we can do…”

Steven tried to escape her grip again, just in time to see another Gem lunge, as if out of nowhere, and knock the Spitter off of Jasper, her punch sending it a good mile away.  She straightened up and dragged Jasper to her feet, then hit her in the chest, not particularly hard.  “You moron!  What’d I say about going off alone?”

Hesitantly, Jasper looked up, and Connie and Steven both inhaled sharply.  The Jasper they were looking at had the same markings, and the same helmet, but she wore armour, her uniform beneath it was different, and her hair was much shorter.  Above all, she looked and sounded _young,_ unsure, her features softer and less set in their usual ferocious lines.  “I wasn’t trying to mess you around!  I was securing the perimeter!”

“You big dope!” The other Jasper—her markings were less like stripes and more like concentric circles of varying colour, and she was darker than her counterpart—grabbed Jasper by the shoulders and shook her.  “We’re in _deep_ coprolite!  The whole unit’s down…”

Jasper went still.  “What?”

“The Spitters picked off Bas and Seren around Checkpoint Dolomite, and I got zero communication with the rest of the squad!”

“It…couldn’t it be a comm problem?” Jasper asked, her voice oddly choked and hesitant.  “Lydite?”

The other Jasper’s face darkened.  “Comm chatter’s the same.  Some big-namer’s moving in on our position for cleanup— _after_ we needed ‘em—but we’re it.  So you can’t just…” She looked over Jasper’s shoulder suddenly, eyes blown wide, and shoved the other Gem flat just before the Spitter struck her full in the chest.

Steven and Connie, who had started screaming at the two Gems as soon as the Spitter reappeared and snuck up behind them, fell silent as it knocked Lydite back and savaged her with ruthless efficiency.  In a second, her body collapsed in a puff of white smoke, tinged faintly with green.

The Spitter lowered its head and sprayed Lydite’s already-cracked Gem with acid.  It began to dissolve with a hiss in less than a second.

Steven turned away and buried his face in Garnet’s leg at Jasper’s near-feral screams.  Connie started to cry as Jasper leapt over and wrenched the Spitter’s head clean off, mad with rage, and Pearl reached down to wrap an arm around her shoulders, her own expression masked with horror; a second before the scene could get gory, the creature dissolved into pink mist, and Jasper was left alone, on her knees, staring at absolutely nothing.

Lapis, who had climbed off Lion during the fight, started forward, and then went still and clenched her fists.  Jasper’s form was see-through, tinged slightly with green.

Greg looked at Connie, at Steven, and then at Lion.  His voice trembled as he spoke.  “Listen, I know you’re not good on doing what you’re told, what with being a cat and all, but this…this isn’t something these kids should _see!_ We _need_ you, Lion!  At least get _them_ out of here!”  He grabbed a couple of handfuls of Lion’s mane for emphasis.  “I’m not kidding around!”

Lion blinked up at him.

“Don’t you give me those big eyelashes, mister!”

_“Hey!”_

A familiar yell made Greg, along with everyone else, look up.  A small figure crested the incline on Jasper’s right flank, slid down it, and charged over to Jasper’s side.  “Hey!  Kid!  You alright?  Listen, I got backup coming, where’s your…friend…”  She trailed off at the sight of the puddle of steaming, brownish acid a few feet away, and an expression of deep horror and sadness settled on her face.  “Oh.  Oh no.”

 _“Ruby?”_ Steven whispered, and looked up at Garnet sharply.  “But…if you’re here…then Ruby’s…”

“I told you, Steven,” Garnet said, as gently as she could, “this is the past.  Think of it like…a movie, or one of Pearl’s holograms.  You can’t do anything to change what’s already happened.”  Briefly, her jaw tightened.  “Although I could have done something _before_ it happened…no, don’t say that.  Don’t go there.  We _can’t._ ”

Down below, the illusory Ruby of the past had snapped a tiny, diamond-shaped device into being and was yelling into it.  “I got _eight_ confirmed kills on the second Jasper supersoldier strike team and _one_ survivor!  This is a rank schist straight-up FUBAR _fiasco,_ and I’m gonna use your _teeth_ for _frets_ if you don’t…”

 _“Apologies, Ruby,”_ came a nasal and slightly snide voice in reply, _“but all ranked medical personnel have been requisitioned for the high command post.  Is the Jasper still functional?”_

“Have you got something _stuck in your hearstumps?!_ She’s three seconds from cracking!  She’s off chasing stardust!  She needs a freakin’ _healer,_ or at least removal from the field!”

_“Negative.  She is being reassigned to Emerald Unit immediately.  They require infantry support.  Removal from the field at this time is impossible.”_

“You…you…”  Ruby’s rage seemed to mount to the point where she was losing her ability to verbalize, until she grabbed the diamond-shaped com by the edges and shoved her nose up against it, snarling, _“Listen,_ you little hunk of space trash, you don’t get this Gem some help, I’m gonna engage in removal of your…!”

A Spitter lunged from nowhere at Ruby.  Garnet jumped, but the illusion-Ruby simply turned and punched the creature in half with a single blazing blow of her gauntlet.  _“Would you give me some FREAKIN’ privacy here, you lowlife carbon-based poop machine?!”_

Fifty more Spitters appeared, surrounding the two of them.  Ruby’s look of rage briefly became one of dread, before steeling herself and tugging on Jasper’s arm.  “Hey.  Hey, big gal, listen, I know you don’t want to hear this but I’m too much of a runt to give you full cover, so I’m gonna need you to get back in slugging mode…okay?”  Jasper failed to move, as more and more Spitters appeared.  She stared at them with no more interest as if they were flecks of gravel.  “Okay?  _Oh for…”_

The Spitters, almost as one, crouched to pounce, and then a flash of pink appeared, directly next to the real-life Crystal Gems and their party.  An enormous pink shield burst into being, and the new arrival leapt on it and rode it down the ridge as easily as an Olympic snowboarder, her movements graceful and fluid as she wielded an enormous sword against the Spitters.  By the time she got to the bottom, half of them were tendrils of pink mist and the other half looked like they were reconsidering their position.

When Rose Quartz flipped her shield up and onto her free arm and took a stance beside Ruby and Jasper with her sword, the Spitters fled.  Only a little winded, she looked down at Ruby and beamed.  “Well, that was exciting.  How are we doing?”

Ruby wordlessly gestured at Jasper, then at the brown puddle on the ground a few feet away.

Rose’s expression went from light to stone in seconds.  “That’s the seventh one we’ve lost today.”

“I just checked in with Pearl on the main station comm before I found this guy,” Ruby growled, turning to kick a stray rock savagely.  “We’re down twenty-six.  They lost all three units.  Now they want to shove this one into _Emerald’s_ unit!”

“Do they,” Rose said, the temperature in her voice dropping rapidly.  “Is the line open?”

Ruby gestured wordlessly at her diamond comm, one-armed.  Rose approached it and tapped the screen.  “Rose reporting in.”

There was a crackle, and then the same nasal Gem, her tone much less snide and much more frantic, responded, _“L-Lady Rose!  What are you doing?  You’re not supposed to be in that sector!”_

“Oh, you know me, I tend to go where I’m needed.  But since we’re on the line, would you be kind enough to give me the full status report on the Vega 28 experimental Jasper super-soldier batch?”

There was a pregnant pause, followed by a nervously muttered, _“You know that the primary directive is that you are to maintain the security of the high command position…as, as the highest-ranking Gem on this outpost…”_

“That doesn’t sound like the full status report I just asked for,” Rose said, all the pleasant lightness leaching out of her voice.

In the silence, Greg gave a low whistle.  “Huh boy.  Somebody’s in for it…”

“Of course they are,” Peridot muttered, “she’s going to yell at the comm.  Everybody does it.  It’s just part of rotation duty.”

Greg gave her a long, pointed look.  “You really don’t know anything about Rose.  At all.  She doesn’t, uh, what do the kids say?  She doesn’t punch down.  She’ll save that up.”

Rose tapped the comm and squinted at it.  “Hm.  I know what it is.  There’s too much resonance on this line.  Patch me through directly to Sapphire, I’m sure she’ll be able to get a stronger signal.  You know how it is on these kinds of planets, there’s no telling what all these magnetic poles will do to communications…”

 _“Y-yes, Lady Rose, right away!”_ The com controller’s relief was pitifully obvious. A second later, there was a buzz and a second familiar voice came through.  _“Rose, the entire batch is gone.”_

“Sapphire, I…oh, I’m still getting used to that,” Rose said.

_“It’s fine.  And Ruby’s going to shrug and roll her eyes.”_

Ruby, who had begun doing just that, bristled.  _“Ugh_ will you quit that?  You’re the _worst,_ seriously, stop messing with me!”

_“I never mess with people.  What’s the final count?”_

Ruby seemed to deflate.  “Uh…we got one Jasper left, and this kid’s a total mess.”

Sapphire paused, and then said flatly, _“I’ve arranging a temporary transfer to Rose’s ship until the Xenotime-Kosmochlor purge is completed.  I filled out the paperwork over the last few weeks so it wouldn’t look suspicious.”_ She sighed.  _“This line is secure.  High Command’s instructions were so poorly-thought-out that this outcome was virtually inevitable, so I also tried to alter the orders coming down from the Diamonds on-world, but the encryption was too strong.”_

Rose gave a sad little chuckle.  “Of course you did.”

“You can’t fix everything, Sapphire,” Ruby muttered.  “You can’t cure Gems being _stupid.”_

 _“I try my best,”_ Sapphire said, a bit drily.  _“Don’t make that gesture, you’ve got a three-month-old right there.  She’ll pick up bad habits.”_

Ruby froze in the middle of making what was clearly an impolite gesture at the floating comm, steaming as if she was going to launch into a barrage, and then went very still.  “Wait.  H-how old?”

_“Three lunar months.  There were over six hundred Jaspers in the original augmented Kindergarten batch.  Now there’s one.”_

“I see,” Rose said.

Ruby looked up at Rose, whose eyes were shadowed.  “You do?”

“Of course.  Tested to destruction. In just three months…”  Rose knelt next to Jasper.  After a minute or two of no response, she offered her hand.  “Jasper?”

Jasper slowly raised her head and looked in Rose’s direction.  Her eyes seemed to be staring straight through Rose’s skull.

“Jasper,” Rose said, gently, “we’re going to take you somewhere safe…”

* * *

 

The room suddenly pixilated and glitched around Team Universe.  Steven let go of Garnet’s leg and sat down hard on what looked and felt like cold metal floor.

Connie let go of Pearl and ran to the nearest window in the pure-white corridor, her face reflected in the glass.  “Steven, look at this!  We’re in _space!”_

Pearl followed them over silently, looking around, and examined the brown, burnt-out planet below them with a dull expression.  It was only when she cast her eyes left and right, down the line of the ship, that she abruptly perked up.  “Oh!  _Oh,_ Steven, Connie, we’re one better than in space!  We’re on _Rose’s_ ship!”  She wrapped her arms around both of them and steered them back to the group.  “Oh, this is such a relief, I’ll be able to show you the pilot’s chair, the engine room, the artillery setup…Amethyst, come with us!  You never saw what her original ship looked like, it’s so aesthetically pleasing, it makes those lumpy ships from the initial Earth landing look like badly designed side tables…”  She trailed off, looking into Steven’s puzzled, upset face, and then Amethyst’s expression of increasingly confused unhappiness.  “Wouldn’t…wouldn’t you like that?  It would be so much…easier…”

“P,” Amethyst said carefully, and turned to Garnet, “Garn?  What did you—what did they mean, _experimental_ Jasper super-soldier batch?”  When Garnet looked down, she turned to look at Lapis, who lowered her eyes and opened a hand helplessly.

Peridot had her screen up.  “I was wondering about that myself.  Scanning archives for pertinent…that’s weird.  I’ve got nothing.  There should be records, even if they’re classified.  The Xenotime purge predates the official creation of the Kindergarten program by a full seventeen solar cycles.”  She squinted at it and jabbed with a finger.  “I don’t _like_ this.  The records are supposed to be _accurate_ and _indelible,_ otherwise what’s the point?  If they’re changed or deleted, you can’t get correct data and you just wind up confused and flailing around like an idiot!”

“Hey, welcome to my life,” Amethyst started to growl.  Suddenly, Pearl released Connie and Steven and straightened up, her eyes going wide.

Rose Quartz was drifting towards them, her movements serene, but her face was drawn with worry.  Greg and Steven watched her go past, round-eyed.

“Rose?”

_“Mom?”_

Peridot lowered her screen, blinking after Rose.  “Wow.  I never noticed those _hips_ before.”

“I know,” Pearl said, distantly and a little wistfully, before freezing and glaring at Peridot.  “I mean _I beg your pardon?”_

Rose passed in front of Garnet and Amethyst, turned in front of a door, and opened it.  She went inside, while Steven and company clustered around the door to watch.

“Is this weird?” Connie asked Steven.

“Very weird,” Steven agreed.

“No, I mean the whole,” she gestured into the room, “watching people who can’t see you and who haven’t told you it’s alright to watch them?  That part.”  She glanced up at Garnet.

“I don’t really care,” Garnet said.  “It’s no big secret.  We were a couple of idiots back then.”  She paused for a moment and then nodded decisively.  “Yeah, we were.”

“Well, I appreciate your courtesy, Connie,” Pearl said.  “I personally wouldn’t like being, ahem, spied on…”

“ _Somebody_ wanted us to see all this junk,” Amethyst muttered, squeezing under Pearl’s arm.  Greg stood on tip-toe to watch over Garnet’s puffy sleeve.  “Anyway, you totally used to spy on Rose and Greg’s dates— _mph!”_   Pearl delicately squished her face against the wall.  Amethyst tried to poke her in the eye.

“Jasper,” Rose said, and everyone fell silent.  Lapis squeezed through Garnet’s legs and stood in front of her, watching intently.

The cabin was small and completely Spartan, with only a sort of flat bed on one side and a screen and floating white chair on the other.  Jasper was sitting on the bed with her elbows on her knees, staring at her feet, but after a moment she looked up at Rose.  Slowly, she stood up and saluted.

Rose put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down again.  “You don’t need to do that.”

“Ma’am.”

“Jasper, please.  Call me Rose.”  She looked around, took the floating chair, and perched elegantly on it.  It lowered considerably under her weight, pushing her knees up against her stomach, but she seemed undisturbed.  “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.  I guess.”

“Would you like to…talk?”

Jasper started to shiver, and the corner of her mouth crept into a familiar snaggle-toothed snarl.  After a moment, she lunged to her feet, suddenly taking up every inch of psychological space in the room that Rose hadn’t claimed.  “What’s there to _talk_ about?  I don’t wanna _talk!_ You, and all these big-shots back at the Homeworld, we’re just…” She started to tear up suddenly.  “We weren’t even…they’re all gone, they’re all _shards!_ I know what happened!  I’m the only one left!”

Rose inhaled sharply.  “Jasper, I’m so sorry.”

“ _Why?”_

“Because…you’re important.  You’re a Gem.  You deserve…better.  You all did…”

“No, _listen,”_ Jasper snarled, her voice dropping suddenly, “you don’t get it!  _Why_ am I the _only one left?”_

Rose, pulled up short, reached for her hand.  “Jasper, I don’t know what to tell you…”

“You don’t know?  You don’t _know?”_ Jasper suddenly whirled and grabbed Rose by the upper arms, hauling her up so that they were nose to nose.  Pearl lurched forward with half-stifled shriek, before Amethyst and Connie grabbed her and hauled her back.  Jasper’s eyes were filled with tears.  “ _Tell me what I did wrong!_ We were all supposed to die, right?  That’s what we were made for!  But _I’m alive!  I must have done something_ wrong!”

Amethyst froze, clutching tightly at Pearl’s hand.

Jasper let go of Rose and sank back onto the bed.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry…”

A soft, pink hand reached out and closed around Jasper’s.  She looked up; Rose had tugged the chair over and was sitting close enough to Jasper that they were almost knee to knee.  “Jasper, listen.  I’d like to ask for you to transfer over to my direct command.  Would that be okay?”

“…your direct command?  But…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rose said, with just a hint of very well-controlled rage in her voice, instantly dismissed a moment later.  “In fact…I like finding good people, and helping them get better if I can.  Most of them do it on their own.  I’m lucky, I’ve got some of the best Gems in the entire fleet on this ship.”  Her smile became gentler.  “I know you’re young, but you’ll fit in.”

“I…but…I wasn’t made to…”

“Hmm, well, I don’t know about that, but you’ll never know what you’re _really_ made for unless you try a lot of different things out, right?” Rose’s tone became teasing.  “Maybe you’d make an excellent light-painter, ever thought of it?”

Jasper’s expression closed.  “You’re making fun of me.”

Rose snapped from amusement to open dismay.  “What?!  Oh, no, no, never…oh, I’m sorry.  I forgot how young you really are.”  Her hand went up to pat Jasper’s cheek.  “Is fighting what you truly want to do?”

“’S all I know how to do.”

“Well, I know a little Gem who might be able to teach you a thing or two in the practice ring.  Nobody else on the ship can stand up to her hand-to-hand, and she’s been looking for a challenge.  You never know, she’s been fussing about you the last few days, she might even take you under her wing as a protégé.”

Jasper blinked at her.  “You mean that puny Ruby?”

“Mm, maybe don’t call her that to her face, or you’ll wind up like so many other Gems.” Rose winked at her.  “On the floor, wondering what happened.”

Jasper stared at her for a moment or two, and then a grin, genuine and not especially unnerving, crept across her lips.  “I bet I can take anybody you throw at me.”  Rose started to chuckle.  Jasper blinked.  “What?  What’d I say?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing, I just have this good friend, she’s, ah, a little unconventional—very different from you—but I think once you’ve stopped yelling at each other, you’ll get along well.”  Rose’s face softened.  “You’re very much alike, I think.  She’s wonderful.”

Pearl hiccupped suddenly, tears streaming down her face.  Garnet wordlessly took her by the shoulders and steered her back out into the illusion-corridor, leaving Amethyst the only Crystal Gem watching.  Steven blinked as Jasper’s smile started to match Rose’s, as his mother took Jasper’s hand and started to draw her out of the room into the ship’s corridor.

* * *

 

Steven blinked again, and they were all standing in another strange room.  Tall and arched, the white pillars encircling it were carved to resemble enormous, stone-faced Gems, every one of them with a triangle motif.  There was no sign of Rose.  At the center of the room, directly under his and Connie’s feet, an enormous yellow triangle was illuminated from below, the only light source in the place; the dome overhead showed twinkling stars and no other body of light.

In the shadow of the dais before them, a figure stood, tall and elegant, the light only catching the very edges of her form from below, so that the rest was cast in shadow.  “She lied to you.”

“What?”

Steven jumped and scooted out of the way; Jasper had been kneeling directly behind Steven and Connie, her hair still short, one fist on the ground.  She stared up at the strange Gem in open dismay.

“Rose is a charismatic Gem.  She enjoys toying with the lower orders.  Her promises are rarely kept, her attention extraordinarily fleeting.”  The stranger shook her head.  “An unfortunate trait, given her station.  I am sorry you were exposed.”

“But she…she said I was…”

“I imagine she said many things to you, Jasper.  She is…manipulative.  Rather twisted.  I am afraid there was no request for your transfer to her command, nor will there ever be.”

Silence fell in the room.  There was an audible half-choked sob.  Steven looked around immediately, but his own people were either stone-faced, pulled completely in on themselves, or they were watching in silent terror, or in Connie and Greg’s case confused apprehension.  Steven looked and saw the much younger Jasper trying to surreptitiously wipe her eyes and failing.

The shadowed Gem turned immediately and gazed down at her, glowing yellow eyes narrowing.  “You asked, I believe, why the others are dead, and you are alive.”

“Y-yeah, the rest of my batch.” Jasper inhaled shakily.  “Every mission we did, right from the start, they were all just…”

“A test, Jasper,” the strange Gem said softly.  Jasper’s head snapped up.  “You were to be the first.  The prototype of every Kindergarten Gem to come after you, the Empire’s new backbone and its strong right arm, would be built from your group.  But how could we be certain you were enough?  That you were…worthy?”

Jasper stared at her, mute, waiting.

“We had to make certain that the Gems who would carry the Empire—who would be our most trusted warriors—were strong.  All the Jaspers who perished, who tried and failed, they would have been too weak to bear that great burden.”  The stranger came down from the dais, heels clicking on the stone floor, and the shadow came with her like a cloak, wrapping itself around her in defiance of all physics.  She reached out with a finger—her arm, shadowed to the elbow, was a sickly yellow—and lifted Jasper’s chin.  “But you?  You are _strong._ Every Kindergarten Gem who comes after you will be measured against you.”

“I’m…strong…but…?”  Jasper seemed to stumble over the words, uncomfortable with the precise, cold point of contact, her eyes darting from side to side.

The hand that had been only lifting her chin suddenly gripped it, forcing her to stare the shadowed figure in the eye.  “Your strength is your worth, and in your worth, find strength.  Find _glory._ You _know_ what you were made for.  Fight.  Win.  Destroy the enemies of the Empire, erase them, and never, ever allow yourself to be defeated.”  She tilted Jasper’s head from side to side.  “Or else what makes you different from all those who were…unworthy?”

Jasper had started to tremble as first, but as the strange Gem went on, she slowly became still.  When she was released and motioned to stand, there was a strange, familiar light in her eye.  “I’m…I’m worthy.  I’ll show you.  I’ll _prove_ it to you!  I’ll bring you the heads of your enemies.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I’ll never let you down.  I’ll never _lose_!  And…I’ll do it on my own.”

“Of course you will.  You don’t need anybody else.”

“I…I don’t.”

“You will rise and endure alone, or not at all.  This is how it must be.  Strength is not strength if it comes through using another as a crutch for your own inadequacy.”  The shadowed Gem made a two-fingered motion of dismissal.  “Your next assignment will begin shortly.  With your experience…you will take the lead.  The captain is a Gem of higher standing of you, and I suspect she will be convinced otherwise.  If she impedes you in your duties, you have my permission to…re-educate her as to our _new_ chain of command.  As you deem necessary.”

Jasper nodded slowly, and bowed.  “My lady.”

“Do not disappoint me.”

“I won’t,” Jasper said, and bared her teeth in a smile that made Steven take a step back.

* * *

 

The room blinked, and became hazy.

“Are we done?” Amethyst said, her voice very small.  “I—guys?  I don’t wanna be in here anymore.”

“It’s okay, Amethyst,” Pearl said, her voice equally tiny.  “We…must be getting near the end of, er, whatever this is.”

“I’m right there with you, Amethyst,” Greg said, his tone unusually serious.  He glared at Peridot.  “Who was that smooth-talking creep just now who had the nerve to call _Rose_ a manipulator?”

“Uh…that…would be my boss, I think,” Peridot said, sounding a bit stricken.  “I didn’t know she ever, uh, actually _touched_ people…”  There was a sudden report and the clang of metal, causing Peridot to flatten herself to the ground with a squeak.

A gem rolled out of the haze, trailing smoke, and rolled to a halt at Steven’s feet.  Lapis reached down for it, but her hand passed through it.  She looked around, at the stricken Crystal Gems, at the humans, at Steven, and motioned, tugged, and pushed them all away.  “Okay, I remember this.  I know what’s going to happen next.”

“Huh?”  Steven looked up at her.  “How?”

“She never shared any of those things we saw before with me,” Lapis said grimly, “but she sure liked to share _this_ one.”

An enormous figure loomed out of the haze and crushed the discarded gem to shards under her feet.  Peridot yelped and scuttled to hide behind Lion, who was watching the entire process with disinterest.

Jasper looked around.  Her hair was long, her helmet in place, and the lines of centuries of rage and ferocity had been etched into her face, leaving none of the youthful soft-cheeked Gem from before.  She was dual-wielding an axe and a spear, her voice rising in a roar.  **_“Rose!_** _Where are you?  I’ve been waiting for a chance to **chat** for a long time, Rose!”_

There was a flicker of motion to her left.  Lapis, startled, grabbed Steven.  “Wait, this wasn’t in the memory she showed me…!”

Garnet reached out and yanked Lapis and Steven out of the way as an enormous Gem shot past them, wielding a Morningstar.  With a roar, she lunged at Jasper, taking her in the shoulder with the spiked ball as the other Gem turned.  Jasper, even injured, was the faster of them, and she cut the attacker in half lengthwise, a motion that made Steven and Garnet both jerk with shock as though they’d been hit.  Pearl whimpered audibly as the other Gem hit the ground, and was crushed to shards under Jasper’s axe.

Jasper gave a wet, pained laugh and dropped to one knee.  “Looking for a little battlefield promotion, huh?  Too slow…”  She dropped her spear and slumped to both knees, using the axe handle to prop herself up and panting as her eyes darted back and forth.  Screams, cries, clashes of metal, and bursts of light splintered the fog surrounding them, and dark figures ran back and forth.

Someone loomed over Jasper from behind.  She turned, lashing out with her axe.

It clanged off an enormous pink shield.

Rose lowered her sword.  She was in full battle armour, strangely congruous with her usual tiered ball gown arrangement, and her feet were bare.  Someone had left a slice high on her left cheek.  Her expression turned from fierce to shocked to hurt in the space of a second.  “Jasper?”

Jasper screamed and tried to lunge at her, and wound up falling over on her side.  She clawed herself upright, snarling, eyes alight with rage.  “Rose… _Quartz,_ huh?  I bet you thought…that was _funny…_ ”

“Jasper, I thought you were…oh, Jasper.”  Rose sounded as if she were speaking to someone already dead, rather than a living Gem bigger than herself and struggling to get to her feet and attack her with an edged weapon.  “What have they done to you?”

“I think the better question,” Jasper gritted out, “is what _you_ did to me, Rose.”  She moved to try and rise again, but then froze as Rose knelt, wiping her own face and then lightly resting a hand on Jasper’s shoulder.  There was a faint sparkle of pink light, and then the ugly wound from the Morningstar was gone.  Jasper stared from it to Rose.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said.  In the distance, someone could be heard screaming her name.

“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be,” Jasper rasped, rising.

Rose’s face became briefly empty of anything but pain, and then she suddenly became, again, the warlord, every pink pastel inch.  “I wish I could have…but I can’t let you hurt any more of my people.”

 _“Rose!”_ The one crying out was close enough now to be identifiable as Pearl, running.  _“Rose, where are you?  Rose!”_

The instant’s distraction this caused Jasper was all Rose needed.  With an efficient strike, she knocked Jasper flat on her back.  The hazy battlefield went dark for a moment.

As soon as the light returned, so did the silence, although the fog remained.  Jasper—minus armour, minus weapons and helmet—got up, slowly, and turned to stare at her audience of eight plus one lion. 

Lapis pushed Steven into Garnet’s hands and stepped forward, in front of the humans and Crystal Gems.  “Well.  I guess you were right.  I really _don’t_ know you.”

“Is this hell?” Jasper whispered.  “Am I dead?”

“You don’t get off that easily,” Lapis said grimly.  “Believe me.”

Jasper’s hands balled into fists at her sides.  “You all…just sat there and watched that…that disgusting pantomime…?”

“What did you expect them to do?” Lapis gestured sharply at them.  “We were trapped here, and they’re _your_ memories!”

 _“I didn’t want them,”_ Jasper screamed in her face, looming over her suddenly.  “And I didn’t—want— _that,_ with you!”

Lapis stood where she was, arms crossed, hands tucked tightly into her armpits, but not budging an inch.  “So what?  You just wanted to go on spending the rest of your life _alone_ on a pedestal built of your enemies’ bodies?”

_“Yes I did!”_

_“Good for you._ You want an expert on being alone?”  Lapis’ eyes were starting to fill with tears of rage.  “You sure fused with the right Gem!  Isn’t it just _great,_ when nobody’s ever there for you?  When nobody at all has your back?!”

“I don’t _need_ anybody to have my back!  Only _weak, pathetic cowards_ need someone to have their _back…”_ Jasper’s expression was going wrong, somehow, like a mirror with a thin imperceptible crack crazing the image within it.

In the fog behind them, something was forming.  Steven looked up at the familiar shape and clutched his father’s hand tightly.  “Dad?  I don’t know what’s going on and I’m not sure I can talk Malachite down this time like I did with Lapis!  Not if she’s this way because of…” Steven gestured around helplessly.

“You don’t have to do it, Steven,” Amethyst said, stepping in front of him, her chin jutting out.  “She’s… _our_ problem, hah, yeah, I guess she’s my problem too, sorta, so we’ll deal with her…”

“Steven, you _shouldn’t_ have to deal with that!  Let _me_ go talk to her,” Connie said desperately.  “Maybe, maybe I can talk some sense into her!  She doesn’t have any history with me…”

“Is that Jasper and Lapis’ fusion?  You punched Jasper in the face with your sword and cut her arm off,” Peridot pointed out, _sotto voce._ “It, uh, _she_ might remember that.”

“Pearl,” Garnet hissed suddenly, “where are you going?”

Pearl brushed past the other Gems and humans and approached Jasper and Lapis.

“Pearl, come back,” Garnet gritted out, then started forward, only to have Greg put his hand on her arm. 

She looked down at it, then at him.  He grimaced awkwardly and lowered his voice.  “Yeah, I know you could basically use me as a basketball and this isn’t actually stopping you, but…let her do it.”

“Greg, she’ll be hurt.”

“Were you listening to what Rose said?  ‘Cause I was.  I always just…liked listening to her talk.  She always had so much to say, and most of it was so smart…except the thing about seagulls being a fascinating blessing, maybe, that was kinda weird, but I digress.  Remember the cabin?  Remember her _unconventional good friend?”_

Amethyst squeezed in between them, watching Pearl intently.  “Greg, if she so much as twitches at Pearl funny, I’mma take her head off from here.”

“Yeah, okay, but…let’s try a little trust first, huh?” Greg whispered.

“I’d feel a lot more trusting if we had a couple of laser light cannons in here,” Garnet muttered.

Pearl, meanwhile, had stopped at Lapis’ side and was staring up at Jasper, as Lapis turned to gape at her in dismay.  “Well.  We meet again…or should I say, we meet at last.”

Jasper looked from Lapis to Pearl.  “Stay out of this before I snap you like a twig.”

“Mm, yes, threats, very intimidating.  You know,” Pearl said, starting to pace in a slowly unwinding circle and ignoring Lapis’ increasingly horrified looks and gesticulations for Pearl to leave, “we seem to have missed each other very briefly on a few occasions.  I thought I had no idea who you were…but now that I’ve got some context, I do, in fact, know you.  Or, that is to say, I remember you.”

“Pearl,” Lapis hissed out of the side of her mouth, “ _what_ are you _doing?”_

“Oh, just fulfilling my function,” Pearl said lightly.  “One of the many uses of a servitor-Pearl: basic repairs, intra-system pilot work, organizational and administrative duties…and recording real-time events for the personal use of one’s patron.  It’s how we’re built,” she added to Jasper.  “We’re incapable of altering or falsifying recordings…”

“ _Shut UP, I know that!_ Make your point before I crush your little egg head.”

“I don’t have a point,” Pearl said.  She glanced sidelong at Lapis.  “I have a history lesson.”  Her gem began to glow.

Backed up by the fog, the image of Rose Quartz was a vivid blue.  Surrounded by three shadowed figures, she gesticulated fiercely, and Pearl became her voice without a hitch, rage rising in her tone as her words matched Rose’s exactly.  _“…you can’t DO this to them, Yellow!  They’re living Gems!”_

_“They are biddable, expendable weapons, Rose.  Exactly what the Empire needs.  Your request for transfer has been denied repeatedly.  I said it to your pet Sapphire and I will say it again to you.”_

_“You told me the Kindergartens would be used to help mine stronger, healthier Gems, not…not poor traumatized lab animals!  What were you thinking, shoving them into the field after they were barely mined?”_

_“A test,”_ said another figure, crisply, _“to find out where the inherent errors were.  The forced hyper-rapid regeneration even with cracked gems and the resistance to even short-term bubbling were sub-optimal features that will be left out of the second batch.”_

 _“So…there was no way for them to_ pass _!  If it was an experiment, don’t you have enough statistical data off the ones who were killed?  If Jasper’s so…”_ Rose struggled to get the word out, _“so expendable to you, why not leave her with me?”_

_“As if we haven’t let you have enough rejects and deviants.”_

Rose whirled on the figure who had spoken, a look of such venom on her face that the strange Gem took a step back.  Then she slumped, her shoulders lowering.  _“So that’s it?  She can’t come be in my command because of…spite?”_

 _“Hardly,”_ said Yellow Diamond.  _“I am fascinated by the potential of an outlier, as you appear to be.  I have simply divorced myself from your display of excessive sentiment.  I want to see how far she can be pushed before she breaks.”_ Her eyes flickered briefly directly to where Pearl was standing, and Pearl flinched, before clearing her throat and going along with the lines. 

 _“You don’t care what happens to her at all!”_ Rose seemed to grow in size, her mounting tension lending her weight and height.

 _“Of course not.  She exists to be used.”_ For a moment, Yellow Diamond’s eyes flickered.  _“As do we all, ultimately.”_

Rose looked as if she were going to pull out her sword and shield and challenge Yellow Diamond then and there, but after a few charge seconds, she slumped, and motioned for Pearl to follow her.  A door closed behind her, the image bouncing, then pulling in close as Pearl followed Rose slumping down with her back against the door.  Pearl herself positioned her body under Rose’s shoulder and looked up into her blue-tinted face.  “Rose?”

_“Pearl…this can’t go on.  I can’t keep doing this.”_

“But Rose,” Pearl said, a little desperately, “you’re doing so much good!  Surely they’ll listen…if you keep trying, they’ll understand, they’ll see that your way is better…”  She seemed to realize what she was saying, and lowered her eyes unhappily.

Rose shook her head slowly.  _“I don’t know, Pearl.”_ She developed an ironic little smile.  _“That’s the trouble with Diamonds.  Not the most changeable mineral.”_ The smile vanished and she hung her head.  _“I failed Jasper, the same way I almost failed you…”_

“Rose, no, you didn’t,” Pearl began hastily, but the hologram suddenly stuttered to a halt, and she was left reaching out for air.  After a difficult moment, she composed herself, stood up, and looked at Jasper.

Jasper was staring at her, then at her own hands, then at Lapis, and then, slowly, over at Steven.  Silence reigned.

It was broken by Peridot’s nervous snort-giggle.  “Wow, you should _see_ the look on your face.”

A moment later, the Room became nothing but pink clouds again, and an enormous hole opened up under them all and swallowed them.  Floating in the darkness, for just a second, the tiny pink whale fluttered by Steven and said, softly, _“I’m so sorry, Steven.  I hope you’ll understand; they needed more help than you could give them by yourself.”_

Steven boggled at it.  _“Mom?_ Wait, what…?”

* * *

 

The destroyed Temple door burst open messily and spat the entire party out onto the warp pad, the Temple floor, and the beach house.

Jasper was up first, moving as if she’d been bitten by a snake.  Garnet was up next, and then, slightly woozily, Lapis.

Steven, lying flat on his back and staring at the beach house ceiling, said to Connie, “I’m voting for a Room break.  I’m.  Actually grounding myself from the Room.  For a thousand years.”

Connie nodded weakly, then started and flipped over on her stomach.  “Jasper!”

Amethyst was already upright once Steven staggered to his feet, her whip out.  All three Crystal Gems were watching Jasper cautiously, weapons ready but not actively threatening.

Peridot, using Lion as cover, every-so-casually slid behind the kitchen counter facing the Temple proper, and peeped over the edge.

As Greg slowly righted himself, Jasper, never taking her eyes off Steven, started to back away towards the door.  “It wasn’t real…none of it was real…”

“So that’s it?”  Lapis’ voice cut sharply across the space between them.  “You can’t fight it, you can’t pretend it never happened anymore, so you’re just going to run away?  _Now_ who’s the coward?!”

“No…I…”

“Don’t lie!  You tried to run away from _me_ once you realized I was stronger than you!”  Lapis’ wings blazed up in a halo of fury.  “I _am_ stronger than you…”

Steven caught her around the waist and hugged her tightly.  “Lapis, don’t fight her!  I wanna talk to her!”

“Steven, I don’t want to fight her either!”  Lapis reached down quickly to clutch his hands.  “I just…want to make her understand…”

There was a crunch.  They both looked up, startled.

Jasper was gone.  So was the screen door.

Greg came over to Steven and put his hands on his shoulders, checking with him carefully, before looking at Lapis.  “Some things you just can’t _make_ people understand, Lapis.  Sorry…uh, yeah, Peridot?”

A green hand rose up slowly from behind the counter.  “I’ll fix the door.”

Greg blinked.  “That’s…awfully nice of you.”

“I’ll install a laser security system on it that’ll fry any unwanted intruders to slag.”

“…uh, how about not that.”

“Steven?” Connie said, a little nervously.

Steven turned to find Amethyst trying to suppress ugly, hiccupping sobs and failing.  Pearl was curled around her looking seconds from a breakdown, and Garnet, while she was holding them both, looked ill.

Lapis started to reach for them, then withdrew her hand and pushed Steven in the direction of the Crystal Gems.  “You’d better go see them.”

As Steven went to try and hug all three of the Crystal Gems with his small arms, and Connie led Lapis outside ("To make sure she's not terrorizing the town again"), Peridot could be heard muttering, “Really really _big_ lasers.  Lots of them.  And stuff with spikes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything in this chapter is 100% pure speculation about Jasper's history with Rose and all the Gems involved, but since we've got zilch from canon, I've taken what I can, fudged a little, and filled the rest in. Is Rose a Diamond? I'm not willing to rule the theory out, or commit to it, so I left the issue deliberately ambiguous.
> 
> Mea culpa for this chapter having a Crying Breakfast Friends ending. I like to end on a joke, but some things even Peridot's home security measures can't make light of.


	15. Last Exit to Beach City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gem Busters come for the Crystal Gems and their new allies, Peridot has some unpleasant moments of clarity, Sugilite and Sardonyx take the stage, and the truth behind the Gem Busters' erratic movements is revealed.
> 
> Meanwhile, the beach house receives an unwelcome guest.

It was dark by the time Greg made his return to the Beach House.  Steven looked up as his dad wandered in, patted himself down absently for car keys that weren’t there, and then slumped onto the window-bench, kicking his flip-flops off. 

“Dad?”

“Steven, hey.”  Greg gave him a weak smile, then nodded at the pile on the couch next to Steven.  “Sleepover party chill time, huh?  That was nice of you.”

Steven scratched the back of his head.  “Yeah, well…they really needed a break after all that Room stuff.”

In a lump of sleeping bags, several of which were decorated with space-faring horses or a No Home Boys motif, Amethyst was curled up with her head in Pearl’s lap and her legs in Garnet’s, rolled up in a quilt like a caterpillar and snoring loudly.  Pearl was slumped against Garnet’s shoulder, dozing, and Garnet herself had leaned back so far that she was facing the ceiling, immobile, making it impossible to tell if she was asleep or merely brooding.  In support of the former interpretation, Steven had tucked the much-abused MC Bear-Bear into the crook of her arm.

Greg sighed.  “Kiddo, you need a break as well.”

“Yeah, but Dad…” Steven made pleading eyes at him.

The sound of running footsteps on the porch distracted them.  Connie burst into the room, caught sight of the Gems, and then closed the door with exaggerated care.  She swung around and plunked down next to Steven, hissing, “I rode up and down the whole boardwalk and asked everybody I could, but nobody saw her leave!  Where do you want me to put your bike?”

“Uh, don’t worry about it, I’ll put it back in Lion sometime tomorrow morning.”  Steven and Connie both looked to Greg.

Greg shrugged unhappily.  “I borrowed Fryman’s car and rode around the outskirts of town checking it out for, y’know, mayhem.  I got nothing…except Fryman being cranky.  He wanted a _really good_ explanation for why I was chasing after the crazed alien sasquatch who tried to kill his kid.”  He stared up at the ceiling.  “I wonder if calling her a sasquatch is pejorative, though, I mean, not like she can help how she’s made and just ‘cause she’s got that huge early ‘90s hair…”

“You should have told him what I told my mom,” Connie said.  “She called while I was out and I kind of panicked and said that a homeless veteran with Gulf War Syndrome broke into Steven’s house and you tried to talk her into getting medical care but she ran off so we were looking for her.  Mom wanted to drive over with Dad and come pick us both up right away so we could stay the night at my house, but I convinced her not to.”  She covered her mouth.  “Oh no.  Amethyst’s right, I _am_ getting good at lying to my parents.”

Steven gave her a weak thumbs-up, then paused to think about it and turned it into a thumbs-down.  “Maybe if you told them the truth…?”

Connie turned pale.  “They’d freak!  They’d absolutely never, ever let me even see you again, let alone do any magical adventuring stuff with you!”

Steven looked desperately at Greg, who shook his head.  “Hey, I don’t know myself, Connie has to make that call.  They’re a little…stricter than I would be, but just because we’re not on the same parenting page, doesn’t mean they’re not good people who care about you.”

Connie crossed her arms and stared at her feet moodily, before jerking her head up.  “Oh!  Where are Lapis and Peridot?”

Steven flopped back against the couch.  “Lapis said she was gonna go looking for Jasper from the air, like Coast Guard helicopter rescue style, but I don’t think she’s back yet.  Peridot,” he squinted over at the Temple floor by the warp pad, where Peridot’s gutted escape pod lay, half-dismantled, “was working on some home security stuff.”  He saw his father’s expression.  “We made her promise no death traps!  Death traps, not okay.”  He sagged.  “But I dunno where she went, either.”

Connie studied him, and then Greg, and squared her shoulders.  “Maybe she went on the roof or down to the support struts.  I’ll go look for them.  Steven, you stay here and…”

“Nope!”  Steven wrapped a sleeping bag around himself and got up.  “Coming with you.”

“Steven, you’re exhausted…” Connie was interrupted by the sound of Greg’s stentorian snores.  The elder Mr. Universe had fallen sideways on the window seat and was gurgling and snorting in his sleep already.  She looked back at Steven.  “Maybe you could just tell me where the stepladder is?”  She hesitated.  “And…a safety helmet?  And maybe a rope, so if I fall off, I don’t land on the…”

Steven grinned at her.  “Maybe we don’t need any of that stuff.  Mayyybe we just need to be taller?”

* * *

 

It took them a few tries, but eventually Stevonnie was able to shin up the drainpipe and slink across the roof.  They couldn’t help thinking of their movements as “catlike”, and had to smother a giggle at the shared idea of a possible future career as a ninja.  Then they heard voices and sounds, and went still.

“…you know it’s not going to be that simple.”

“How do you know it won’t be?”  Lapis, Stevonnie thought, sounded tired and more than a little put out.

Nothing, however, compared to Peridot, who sounded as if she’d been eating frustration for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  “Because _nothing_ is simple anymore!  Because…you said Homeworld isn’t anything like you remember it?  Okay, _fine,_ you’ve been away from it for pushing seven thousand years!  I’ve been dealing with this rotten planet for _three months_ and it’s _ruined my life.”_

There was a charged pause, and then Lapis said drily, “Now I remember why I came up here to chat.  It’s good to know there’s somebody in this group who’s more selfish than I am.”

“Oh, shut _up_ with your snotty I’ve-seen-it-all dirt!  Are you even listening?  I…this…”  Stevonnie peered over the roof’s peak just in time to see Peridot gesturing furiously around at the house, the cliffs, the beach, and the sea.  “It was supposed to be _easy!_ This planet was supposed to just be a routine re-activation…” She trailed off, slumping forward.  “It’s ruined everything.”

Lapis made a noncommittal noise.  “That’s a lot for a backwater dirt ball to accomplish.”

“Between _Steven_ and the Crystal Clods and those _robots_ and the jerks at the stupid, _stupid_ Big Donut and…that _Room…_ ” She looked up suddenly, hopefully at Lapis.  “It was fake, right?  The Room?  It just picked up Jasper’s crazy fantasies and amplified them.  Right?”

Lapis’ unimpressed stare was, in Stevonnie’s opinion, legendary.

Peridot wilted and hung her head.  “I knew it.  I _knew_ it.  I knew from the minute my override codes didn’t work on the Gem Buster.  They didn’t even bother to program them in.  That wasn’t a bug, that was a _feature.”_

“Mm.  Because caring about who gets sacrificed really puts you at the top of the Homeworld’s pecking order.”

“Will you cut it out with the _sarcasm?_ Right now, the only people who care if I live or die are those clods in there and a few humans who are either paid servitors or delusional!”  Peridot hesitated, and then said, almost to herself, “And I don’t even know _why_ the humans care.”

“What about Steven?”

“Oh, _Steven,”_ Peridot muttered.  “Doesn’t count.  He _cares_ about everybody even when they’re trying to kill him.  He’s thick as a tectonic plate.”

Exactly one-half of Stevonnie went into such a state of burning fury that, without the other half’s immediate soothing influence and appeal to curiousity, they would have split immediately.  Grumbling to themselves, they settled in.

“Steven’s not stupid.”

“I didn’t say _stupid,_ I said _dense!_ He’s got glitched friend-or-foe programming, or whatever it is humans call it!”

“He’s not dense, either.”  Lapis folded her feet under herself and spread her wings.  One of them slapped Peridot in the face lightly, making her sputter and curse.  “He wants to believe there’s something good in everybody.”

Peridot gave her an incredulous look.  “But that’s _dumb!”_

Lapis thought about this for a moment or two, then shook her head.  “I think that’s human.  It’s amazing how so many of them seem to want to give you another chance.  But Steven’s special.  And…Greg, too, I think, in his own way.  And Connie in hers.”  She allowed herself a small smile.  “I don’t know why I’d feel safe with them after everything I did, but they want to help.  I don’t know why, but they do.”

Peridot made a grumpy noise.  “This entire species has lousy self-preservation instincts.”

“They seem to do okay.”

Peridot shifted uncomfortably, and then blurted out, “You know what the _worst_ part is?  It’s _infectious!_ They do something…nice for you, just because they can, and it makes you want to _protect_ them!”

“Uh…” Lapis shifted to squint at Peridot.  “This might seem a bit random, but did you have any friends before you came here?”

Peridot stared at her for a few seconds.  “…there were some other Peridots I played Galactic Mineworks with as a team?”

Lapis nodded.

“…they stopped messaging me after I beat all their high scores and made fun of them for it.”  Peridot looked down at her feet, her mouth a sour line.  “What’s your point?”

“Nothing.”  Lapis stood up and stretched her wings out, batting Peridot in the face again.

_“Will you quit that?”_

“Sorry,” Lapis said, and looked down at her.  “Look, why…I know you’re young, but why get so glued to the Homeworld’s orders when it was obvious from the get-go they didn’t care?”

Peridot hesitated and looked down at her hands, twiddling her fingers over one another in the sort of weird geometric configurations Stevonnie had only seen on old computer screen-savers.  Eventually, she said, “Yellow Diamond…”

“Oh, boy.”

“ _Would you let me finish!_ Yellow Diamond picked me out because…she said I was promising and the repair mission would be vital to Gemkind’s advancement efforts.  I mean, she gave me the Red Eye!  _Nobody_ gets to use a Red Eye scanner except high rankers!  And when those Crystal Cranks messed up my mission, she gave me a fully-armed battleship and an elite super-soldier as an escort!  My mission was important!  _I_ was important,” Peridot burst out.

Lapis just stared at her in silence.

Peridot slumped.  “…I’m not important.  I’m just like those stupid Gem Busters.  Another…” Her fingers balled up into fist shapes.  “…another useless fire-and-forget _drone.”_

“Well.  I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then what _am_ I?!  What am I supposed to do?  _Ugh,_ I sound like _Jasper._ At least she has the excuse of being a big dumb messed-up log.  How come I don’t know what to do?!  All I can think of is…is repair and build and complete the mission parameters, except the mission is busted to gravel and _I’m_ in cahoots with the greatest threats to Gem control of this arm of the galaxy!”

Lapis hesitated, and then sighed.  “Why not start with building some relationships instead?”

“Wha?  _How?_ What, like run around being all nicey-nice to everybody with a dumb grin plastered all over my face?  I can’t do that!”

“You’ll have to figure it out for yourself, I guess,” Lapis said.  “I’m not exactly the expert.”  She got ready to launch, and then paused.  “Maybe if you quite trying so hard to _act_ like you’re superior when you _know_ you’re not, you might have a better chance at people liking you for who you really are.”  She stalled briefly on Peridot’s expression of dread.  “I mean.  I guess, when you’re.  Comfortable doing that.”

“…I’m gonna go see if my laser tracking system is juiced up enough,” Peridot mumbled, and jumped down from the roof. 

Lapis watched her stalk off the porch and into the beach house, and prepared to take to the air again, only to jump half a food when Stevonnie slid down beside her and tapped her shoulder.  “ _Eeep!_ Wha—who—wait!  Stevonnie?”

Stevonnie nodded at her solemnly.  “Are you doing okay?”

“Mm…I think so.  Flying helped me clear my head a little.”  Lapis offered them a shy smile.  “You two, ah, look _different_ when you’re fused.”

“I know!  Isn’t it great?  We’re tall and we have _amazing_ hair and you should see how fast we can run and jump!”  Stevonnie cut themself off in mid-excited dance and looked at her.  “So, any sign of Jasper?”

Lapis’ face darkened.  “No.  I…don’t know whether to be glad she’s gone, or…worried what she might do after all that stuff today.  To someone else, or to herself.”

Stevonnie reached out carefully and laid their hands on her shoulders.  “But you’ve been through bad stuff today too!”  They paused, eyes widening, as Steven relayed some very specific, detailed imagery to Connie directly.  “ _Really_ bad stuff, wow!”

Lapis shrugged.  “I know.  But I had somebody I really trusted with me.”  She looked away, smiling.  “I didn’t have to…go through everything alone.  You wouldn’t believe what a difference that makes.”

“Yeah,” Stevonnie said solemnly.  “We…I would.”

Lapis turned suddenly and hugged them.  “When I said I wouldn’t run away anymore…well…I mean…”

_Doo-dee-doo-doo-doo_

Stevonnie froze in mid-hug, then patted Lapis’ back rapidly and began searching their pockets.  “My phone!  Wait!  Your phone?  Steven’s phone!  If it’s my phone, you can’t pick it up sounding like this, what if it’s… _ahh!”_ They turned to light and split in two, and Lapis had to catch them both to keep them from rolling clean off the roof.

As Connie struggled to keep her balance, Steven rolled upright and snatched out his phone.  “Hello, this is definitely Steven Universe speaking!  Nobody else at all!”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then Kiki Pizza said, a little shakily, _“Uh, yeah, I…figured?  Hey, Steven, how’s it going?”_

“Uh…good?  Really, really good?” Steven gave Lapis and Connie an extremely awkward grin while sweating.  “I’m perfectly normal in every way?”

_“Okay,”_ Kiki said, _“that’s good.  Does your phone have MugTime on it?”_

“Oh, yeah, sure it does!”

_“Okay, turn it on so I can show you something?”_

Steven obliged, his grin freezing on his face.  “Uh…that’s…”

_“I’m glad_ you’re _having a normal day,”_ Kiki said, _“’cause ours?  Not so normal!  Wait, hold on a second, Steven,_ Jenny, _what are you doing?  Those things ain’t moving faster than 60, why’re you trying to do 120 in a 50 mph zone?!”_

_“Because I_ can _and because I don’t want us to get eaten by goddamn robot Triffids or something_ , _seriously,”_ Jenny could be heard shouting at her sister.  _“If we get pulled over I’ll pay the ticket!”_

_“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,”_ Kiki retorted, before turning the phone back to her own face rather than what could be seen visibly pursuing the Pizza family’s delivery jeep down the highway.  _“Steven, are these the dudes from the beach party?”_

“Y-yeah,” Steven stuttered.  “Those are…definitely…our robots.”

_“Okay, so there’s like a hundred of ‘em heading down here like a herd of cows and we just passed Exit 40, we’re about twenty minutes from town, what do you want us to do?  Call Mayor Dewey?  The National Guard?  I’m not up on alien crabs here, Steven, I don’t know what to do!”_ Kiki sounded increasingly strained with panic.

A shadow fell over Steven, and Garnet plucked the phone from his hand.  “Don’t call Mayor Dewey and don’t bother with the National Guard.  Get somewhere safe.  This is a Gem problem.”  She nodded at Steven, one of her hands closing into a fist.  “We caused this, so we’ll handle it.  It’s what we do.”

_“’Kay,”_ Kiki said dubiously.  _“l’ll, uh, see what we can do…whoa Jenny no_ slow down _there’s a_ huge pothole… _!”_ MugTime shut off, as did the call with Kiki.

Steven stared up in terror at Garnet.  “They’re coming here!  We’re not ready!  You were supposed to be having nice restful dreams about _fluffy sheep!”_

“I was meditating,” Garnet said.  She squared her shoulders, and the rest of herself.  “And we _are_ ready.  More ready than we were before.”  She looked at Lapis.  “Get Peridot, wake Pearl and Amethyst.  We have to take the fight to the Gem Busters, _now,_ or they’ll trample Beach City and everyone in it trying to get to us.”

* * *

 

The Gems, plus Steven and an armed Connie, made their stand on the highway off-ramp, one bus stop up from the Crab Shack, just over the hill putting them out of Beach City’s direct line of sight.  It was 3 am and no cars appeared on the roach.  Apart from a few faulty street lights, far apart, everything was dark and the stars overhead were vivid.

“…I’m still not sure we should have taken the bus,” Connie murmured, staring ahead into the dark.  “The driver was looking at us funny.”  She snuck a glance at Garnet.  “And I don’t think he was happy when you dented the roof.”

“Only way to get the laser light cannons up here without making Greg go borrow someone else’s car, or trying to fix the van in five minutes,” Garnet said, hefting one under her arm.  Amethyst and Pearl were struggling with Pearl’s adjustable setup on the second cannon, Amethyst holding the enormous pink cannon up with a grim expression while Pearl tinkered in silence.  Garnet glanced over at Peridot.  “And then there’s her...whatever that is.”

“I _told_ you it’s a makeshift death ray,” Peridot growled, clamping a blaster roughly the size of her own trunk to her arm.  “Why doesn’t anybody _listen_ to me?  The Gem Busters have seen all my moves, so the neural network will have relayed the real-time archival information to _all_ of them!  I had to up my game!”  She glared at Garnet.  “With that in mind, _tell_ me you have a plan!”

Garnet inhaled deeply through her nose.  Steven, helping Pearl adjust a crank on the cannon, thought for just a moment that she seemed off-balance, fists balling at her sides.  Then she straightened up and nodded decisively.  “We confuse them.  Change gems, change tactics.  They haven’t fought everybody in our team.”

“Huh?”

“They only saw Opal.  We still have Sugilite, Sardonyx, and Alexandrite in our pockets.” Garnet nodded at Pearl and Amethyst.  “So to speak.”

Peridot paused, her finger going from Gem to Gem and her lips moving as she worked out the combinations, and then her jaw sagged.  “You all just…fuse with _each other_ all over the place?”  The Crystal Gems looked at each other and nodded.  “…and I thought _humans_ were bad.  I thought fusion was supposed to be some kind of “precious emotional connection” to you guys…”

“Yeah?  _Guess what,_ warp brain,” Amethyst snapped, releasing the cannon so that it cracked into place and stalking over to Peridot, yanking her down so that they were eye to eye.  “We _have_ precious emotional connections!  You think I fuse with Pearl and Garnet ‘cause I don’t _like_ ‘em?  Sur _prise_.”  She swiped an arm over her face and released Peridot, looking morose.  “Anyway, uh, who should fuse first?  Maybe Sardonyx?”

Pearl straightened up and gently shooed Steven over Connie-wards.  “I’d considered that and discussed it with Garnet, but we simply can’t afford to have a mess like the junk yard happen again.  We’re going to dig in and establish the cannons and the,” she gave Peridot an arch look, “ _death ray_ as a bulkhead.  Steven can help with shielding and activating the cannons, but we can’t just wait for them to come to us.”  She nodded at Amethyst.  “We need someone in the vanguard who’s…huge, and who’s willing to take the fight to the Gem Busters.”

Amethyst looked from Pearl to Garnet, who nodded.  Her face broke into a slow grin of pure delight.  “Really?  You’re serious, you guys actually _want_ Sugilite?”  She stopped and looked away.  “What if I mess up again?”

Garnet put a hand on her shoulder.  “It takes more than one to mess up, Amethyst.  And I really need you right now.”  She pointed with her chin at Steven, Connie, and Pearl.  “ _We_ really need you.”

For a moment, it looked as if Amethyst was going to tear up, the she shook her head hard and clenched her fists, beaming.  “I’m ready!”

“So do you booty dance when you form Sugilite too?” Lapis asked curiously.

“Bob, you have no _idea,”_ Amethyst said gleefully.  “The booty is out of this _world._ So, uh, you’re sticking with the barricades, right?  Distance attacks, mirror stuff, big fake water Gem Busters?”

Lapis shook her head.  “I’m going in with Sugilite.”

Connie and Steven froze and looked at each other.

“Lapis,” Pearl said, “I’m not entirely sure that’s _advisable…_ ”

“You’ve got you, Steven, and Peridot on a defensive firing line,” Lapis said.  “I can protect myself now, and I _will,_ but you need someone supporting Sugilite on…” She suddenly had to shield her eyes as a blast of purple-black light arched into the sky and caught them all by surprise. “…the front lines.”

Sugilite stretched, chuckled, and grinned down at them all with teeth like broken glass.  “Hey, _ladies._ Miss me?  ‘Cause _I_ sure did.”

Peridot opened her mouth.  A tiny squeak of horror came out.

Sugilite lowered her shades and winked at her.  “That’s what I like to hear.  Hey, Pearl, looking good.  No hard feelings about last time, huh?”

Pearl crossed her arms and smirked up at her.  “As long as _you_ have no hard feelings about your, ahem, egregious defeat.”

Sugilite reached down and gave her a friendly pat on the back that knocked her clean over onto her face.  “Still an uptight butt, huh?  That’s no problem.  Even you’re gonna love _this_ party.  All we’re missing is a disco ball!”

“We’ve got the laser light cannons!” Steven called up to her.

Sugilite suddenly squatted down, making Peridot jump a good two feet, and offered Steven her index finger for a high-five, which he gave her.  “ _That’s_ my fave little man.”  Five eyes swivelled towards Connie, who paled, but bowed politely.  “And heyyy, you brought your friend too!”

“Miss Sugilite,” Connie said.

“Kick-ass.  Hey, stay in school, honey.  Saving the world doesn’t pay your bills.  You gotta do it out of _love,_ you know?”  Sugilite glanced over at Lapis, who took a step back.  “So, Wet Blanket, you wanna try and keep up with me?  _Excellent.”_ Her voice became suddenly and unexpectedly baby-ish, which did nothing to diminish how menacing she sounded.“Don’t screw up, you’re not as smart as Pearl and you wouldn’t be able to figure out a way out of the poop-storm.”

“Uh-huh,” Lapis said carefully.  “Now I’m a little worried about what Sardonyx is like.”

Sugilite mimed examining her nails.  “Who’s _that?”_

“So,” Pearl said, raising her voice, “now that everyone’s here—except Lion, but never mind that, I have _no_ idea where he went after we left Rose’s Room—we need to establish one key aspect to our strategy.  Absolutely _none_ of them must get behind us!”

“Pearl,” Connie said.

“I know it’s very basic strategy, but elegant simplicity is often the key to…”

_“Pearl, they’re_ behind _us!”_

* * *

 

Peridot’s death ray burnt out after five shots, and Pearl had to drag her to cover and madly help her repair it while Connie and Steven worked the laser light cannons.  Pearl had considerately including a crank-balance mechanism so that two human children could tilt the cannons, turn them, and aim them with less difficulty than four Gems once had.

There was a lot to aim at.

The Gem Busters had started varying their models.  There were small, agile ones with bodies merely the size of cars, who could easily plunge their claws into the side of the hill and scoot up sideways to cross behind the cannon line and attack the kids, Pearl, and Peridot from behind.  Connie tried to snipe one and the shot blew out a massive chunk of the hillside along with the Gem Buster, turning trees and grass to ash.

She and Steven exchanged looks of dismay.  “I feel like I just betrayed Hayao Kinozaki and all those hours of watching _Air Garden_ on repeat!”

“I know… _ahh Connie duck!”_ Steven threw up a bubble around himself, Connie, and the cannons, causing a Gem Buster’s claw launched to bounce off and embed itself into another Gem Buster.  The first robot pulled the second one into itself with a sickening crunch, and they both went down.  Steven dropped the bubble and he and Connie low-fived quickly, before turning back to the cannons again.

There were other Gem Busters, slow and cumbersome and built to be the size of houses, and Sugilite was taking ferocious glee in smashing them to pieces.  She was a juggernaut, a maelstrom of destruction, and Peridot paused getting her death ray re-attached to stare.  “You beat that.  In a fight.”

“She was emotionally compromised at the time,” Pearl admitted, hurrying back to the kids and the cannons.  Her mouth became a prim line as she heard some of the battle cries Sugilite was roaring.  “Although I don’t appreciate her language, there are _human children_ present!”

“Yeah, Pearl, I was gonna ask…” Steven began.

“I will tell you what those words mean when you are _over thirty,_ Steven.  And possibly pair-bonded in your tradition of choice.”

“Awww, no fair!”

Sugilite was cackling madly as she stomped a house-sized Gem Buster flat.  _“Now who’s the cheap trick?  My damage bill’s at seven figures, y’all never gonna see me comin’…’til I **pull your triggers.** ” _She grabbed a Gem Buster bodily and squeezed it until it fired cable-claws through three of its fellows, and then released it, the force of its own cable winch propelling it into the other Gem Busters and creating a massive pyre of destruction.  In the light of the flames, Sugilite turned with a demonic laugh for the next enemy, and then glanced around.  “Hey, Wet Blanket, where’d you go?”

A water bullet sniped and engulfed a Gem Buster sneaking up on her, then turned to scythes and shredded it.  From overhead, Lapis snapped, “For somebody with five eyes, you’re terrible at watching your back!”  She twisted around to shout to the remaining Gems, “Peridot, Pearl, we need more cover fire!”

_“On it,”_ Peridot snapped, and she and Pearl opened fire.

Steven, once he had shot his role as speaker for the pork chop, crouched down behind the cannons and whispered to Connie, “You know, there’s _another_ fusion the Gem Busters haven’t seen…”

Connie blinked.  “Could we do it twice in one day?  It really seems to tire the Gems out!”

“But not us,” Steven protested.

Connie put her chin in her hand.  “Well…I have my sword…”

“And I have my shield…”

“We could do it!”  Connie’s eyes sparkled.  “Stevonnie, the _ultimate_ Jam Bud!  Oh, no.  I just got the Powertron theme song stuck in my head again.”

“Then let’s get it stuck in _both_ our heads!  Let’s…”  Motion from behind them caught Steven’s eye, and he turned to find three Gem Busters surging up the road behind them, claws aimed at Pearl and Peridot’s unprotected backs.  _“Let’s do it now this isn’t good!”_

One of the Gem Busters exploded in a burst of green flame and melted slag, then another.  Peridot took aim at the third one, but the blast threw her flat on her back instead.  She got up, started at her smoking arm and the melted wreck attached to it, and started to well up with tears.  “Ow…why…why isn’t it _working?_ It’s not _fair!_ I did everything I was supposed to, _why isn’t it working?”_ She started to curl in on herself.  “It just _hurts…”_

“Peridot!” Pearl yelped, yanking her spear out, as the Gem Buster loomed over her.

Out of nowhere, a figure slashed one of the machine’s legs off, climbed up onto its chassis as it sagged, and drove a sword one-handed into the neural transmission hatch, then leaping clear with a graceful aerial somersault before the Gem Buster exploded.  They landed in front of Pearl and Peridot.

“… _Stevonnie?”_

Stevonnie nodded at Pearl.  “Hi Pearl, gotta go, there’s more…” They glanced over Pearl’s shoulder and went pale.  “ _Sugilite!”_

The enormous Gem was fighting off multiple Gem Buster claws gripping all four of her limbs.  She roared and threw her attackers into the hillside, or punched them into the ashphalt, but they kept coming, dragging her down by sheer weight of numbers.  She gritted out, _“Gotta…un-fuse…NO!  I can do this…_ we _can do this…!”_ She saw a Gem buster stalking straight towards them, drill aimed for Amethyst’s gem, and her face hardened.  _“No we_ can’t!  _No more risks, not with your life at stake!  You’re NOT EXPENDABLE.”_

Sugilite turned into light and un-fused just as the Gem Buster lunged, drilling through nothing. Freed from their bonds, Garnet and Amethyst immediately hit the ground, rolled, and started running.  Around them, Gem Busters lunged after them and were met by a wall of water, or a liquid replica of themselves that climbed up around them and consumed them, or they were simply swatted flat by a giant water hand.

_“Lapis,”_ Garnet barked, “you’re over-exherting yourself!  Get back to the cannon line, _now!”_

“What?!”  Lapis turned on Garnet, a water wall protecting her back this time, and then her eyes went wide with horror.  _“Garnet, Amethyst!”_

“Wha— _Steven,”_ Amethyst yelled in horror as a figure jumped the barricade of destroyed Gem Busters and ran towards them, “cut it out!”

“It’s _Stevonnie,”_ they shouted back, “and these jerks haven’t—“ they lunged, dodged, and sliced, covering their blind side seamlessly and driving up with the shield, cutting and stabbing with Connie’s sword, “—seen our A-game yet…oh.  Oh boy.”

A circle of Gem Busters surrounded them suddenly, and a quite different voice from their usually uncannily squeaky too-fast voices came from more than a dozen vocalizers: **_“Surrender Rose Quartz.”_**

“What?”

**_“Organic life form: surrender Rose Quartz.  This is your final warning.”_ **

“What…I…huh?” Stevonnie gripped their sword tightly.  “No!  No way, never!  What do you _want?”_

**_“Destruction.  Peace.  The peace of the Gem Empire.  Criminals must and will be destroyed.”_ **

Stevonnie’s ears were filled with roaring.  Over the sound, Peridot could be heard shrieking in panic about something.  “You…you can think?”

**_“Our numbers are a thousand-fold.  We are legion and one.  You cannot escape us.  You cannot defeat us.”_** As one, the Gem Busters aimed their claws and drills at Stevonnie.  **_“Accept destruction.”_**

A purple blur burst through one of them like a buzz-saw, skidded to a halt, and snatched Stevonnie up in a princess carry.  “Accept that you _suck beans,_ tin can!”  Stevonnie, blinking, stared up at Amethyst in her Purple Puma form.

The remaining Gem Busters focused their attention on Amethyst as their fellow began to rebuild itself unsteadily from scraps of its comrades.  **_“Small and insignificant aberration.  You are defective output.  Accept elimination.”_**

Three of the Gem Busters started to turn suddenly, and were smashed to smithereens for their troubles.  In the same moment, Lapis Lazuli shot straight down, snatched Amethyst and Stevonnie up, and made for the skies, wings working like a hummingbird’s.  “You’re _heavy,_ Amethyst!  Can you get smaller?”

Stevonnie squirmed around to stare down at the new figure, smashing and belabouring her way through the remaining Gem Busters with balletic grace and Broadway showiness, wielding a war hammer like a major-domo’s baton.  Lapis swooped back to the cannons and dropped them off there, then hovered uncertainly.  “Who _is_ that?”

As if summoned, the strange Gem made a full, showy turn that destroyed six Gem Busters in one go, leapt over to the cannons and the heap of destroyed Gem Busters, and beamed down at them, delighted confidence radiating from triangular hair to gapped teeth to the tip of every one of her twenty fingers, before straightening up and striking a pose.  “I know it’s an _unorthodox_ entrance, but sometimes you simply _have_ to come from the floodlights instead of stage left!  Ladies and persons, please welcome the _lovely,”_ she spun to wallop a Gem Buster on her right flank, “talented,” and then another on her left, “Saaaardonyx!”

Stevonnie went sparkly-eyed.  “ _You’re_ Sardonyx?  You’re so pretty!”

“Oho, I try!”

Amethyst clapped drily.  “Yay.”

“Oh you’re so cute.  Well, Stevonnie, you’re going be a hard act to follow, but let’s see if I can…” Sardonyx turned, hesitated, and looked around, “…give it a go?”

Lapis looked around, blinking.  “They’re…they’re gone?  You scared them away!”

Sardonyx looked from left to right, then up, then around in a full circle, her articulated torso turning a full 360 degrees without having to move her feet.  “Hm, it _does_ seem like the audience got up and walked out during my star performance!  Normally I’d be disappointed, but with such a rough crowd, I can’t say I’m complaining!  _Ohohohoho!”_

Stevonnie gave a jump of joy, then accidentally separated and plopped to the ground as Steven and Connie.  Steven wiped his forehead.  “Phew!  So…we won?  We beat ‘em!  Wow, I’m _so_ tired.  Can we go home and make waffles?  And then sleep?  Or sleep and make waffles at the same time?”

“I suppose that’s my cue to exit stage left,” Sardonyx said dubiously, before reaching down to chuck Steven under the chin with a finger.  “But if you, my handsome gentleman, ever have need of the _fabulous_ Sardonyx, I’m just a dance away!”  She burst in a flutter of dragonflies, leaving Pearl and Garnet standing there, hand in hand, blinking.

“Well,” Pearl said finally, “that was…anticlimactic.  Has anyone seen Peridot?”

Connie looked, pointed, opened her mouth, and then fell silent.

Peridot had her back to one of the laser light cannons, cradling her scorched arm and shivering, eyes wide.  Amethyst stumped over and waved a hand in front of her eyes.  “Yo, dorkmeister.  It’s over, we won.  Hey, you even did okay!  Don’t worry about the arm, Steven can just like spit on it…”

“It’s _not over, it’s not okay, and I don’t care about the arm!”_ The vehemence in Peridot’s voice made the Crystal Gems and Lapis step back, startled.  Peridot gave them a haunted look.  “Don’t you get it?  Didn’t you _hear?”_

“Something about surrendering Steven,” Pearl said dubiously.

“Not that!  _Not that! **We**_ are legion, you stupid _clods_!  It said _“we”!_ It’s not just a mechanized hivemind following orders from the extranet anymore!  It’s developed sentience!  No, _sapience!_ It’s _thinking!”_ Peridot’s expression of furious desperation crumpled.  “It’s…it’s all my fault, and I don’t know how to fix it…and we didn’t _win,_ there’s _more_ of them!  Way more!  There’s an entire _hive_ of them by now, with a central intelligence stored somewhere safe!  That’s how mechanized hive A.I.s are supposed to work in theory!”  She clutched at her head.  “In _practice_ nobody’s ever done anything dumb enough to create one!  Until _me!  I’m literally the dumbest Gem in history!”_   She started to cry.

Steven went over, sat down next to her, and held her uninjured hand until she finally stopped crying and looked deeply embarrassed instead.  Only then did he let go. 

Lapis helped him pull Peridot to her feet, and then looked around at the mountain of Gem Buster wreckage festooning the highway and the half-destroyed hillside.  “I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that we won’t be taking the bus back into town.”

“I think the walk would be good for us,” Garnet said faintly.  “We…need to make a new plan, before things get even more out of hand.”

* * *

 

Garnet and Amethyst carried Connie and Steven piggy-back all the way into town.  The other Gems trailed them in silence, Peridot cradling her arm and staring at her feet.

They made it into Beach City just as dawn broke.  Mayor Dewey, with his loudspeaker-less van, drove past them on the boardwalk, stopped, reversed, and parked next to them.  He squinted at the battered Gems.  “Is…there something I should know about that’s going on in my lovely and flourishing city?”

“Yeah,” Garnet said.  “Exit 41 off the Interstate is blocked and you probably want a construction crew there.”

Mayor Dewey nodded slowly.  “Thank you for your expression of concerned citizenship.  I’ll make the call right away…” He blinked.  “Hmm.  I know that _technically_ you’re not tax-paying voters, being exempted for…reasons…but would you like a ride to the hospital?  I’m sure I won’t get too far off schedule if I come into the office at 6:30 instead of 6.”

Pearl eyed him.  “That depends.  Do your human doctors still saw people’s limbs off and pour pitch on the stumps…?”

“We’re fine,” Garnet said quickly.  “We just need rest.”

“Alright, I understand.”  Mayor Dewey sighed.  “When my Buck was just a little boy in diapers, he…oh wait I’m not allowed to tell that relatable, comedic story, he’d get embarrassed.  Oh, uh, by the way, tell Universe that he’s no longer obligated to give me free car washes for the rest of the year in return for the loudspeakers!  Delmarva’s deputy governor offered me a free replacement from his old ice cream truck!  Isn’t that something?”  He thumped a fist to his chest, chin wobbling.  “The power of politics in action.”

Lapis stared blankly at the Mayor, then looked at Pearl.  “What’s he supposed to be?”

“He’s the leader of this settlement,” Pearl said.  “He hangs out posters and the other humans turn up and put little papers in boxes and somehow that makes him in charge of them if they want him.  Don’t ask me why they’re still doing it, it seems tremendously inefficient to me, but now isn’t the time to be discussing this, we need to go home.”

“But what does he _sell?_ I thought all the humans around here sold things…”

Pearl started to steer Lapis away.  “Thank you for the offer, Mayor Dewey, we’re fine.”

 “Bye, Mayor Dewey,” Steven said, waving weakly to the sputtering mayor.

* * *

 

Garnet sagged into the beach house door and held it so the rest of the Gems and humans could trudge inside.  Greg was still snorting and mumbling to himself, fast asleep, curled up on the window ledge.  Steven climbed off Amethyst and put a blanket over Greg, then trudged up the stairs after Connie into the loft.  Lion was there, ensconced on the bed, but with some shoving and effort Steven was able to get him to move over enough that Connie could flop onto the comforter next to the enormous pink fur mass.  Belatedly, she remembered to take off her glasses and kick off her shoes, and after a few seconds she started doing that tell-tale snuffle that meant she wouldn’t wake up for a Gem monster invasion or a herd of elephants.

Steven wandered around the loft until he found his phone among his pile of game cartridges.  The battery was almost dead, and there were a lot of calls from some number he didn’t recognize.  He tried to dial back and got a robotic answering machine that just recited the number and asked him to leave a message, so he hung up and staggered back downstairs.

Peridot had tripped over the doorstep and face-planted onto the floor, where she lay like a pile of dropped Jenga blocks.  Steven hunkered down at the bottom of the stairs and tugged on her undamaged arm.  “You okay?”

“I’m great, Steven, thanks,” Peridot mumbled.  She lifted her head enough that she could cock an eye at him.  “Just leave me here to wallow in my failure as a Gem in peace.”

Steven considered this, then went back upstairs, fetched a pillow, came back down, lifted her up, and stuck it under her shoulders.  “This’ll support your neck with no smothering.  Want some frozen yogurt while you wallow?”

For a moment, Peridot just glared at him, then she sighed and turned her face back to the floor.  “Yes please.”

Steven clattered around the kitchen a bit, and finally brought her a pink bowl full of bubblegum frozen yogurt, with a tiny teddy-bear spoon stuck in it like a flag pole.  He sat down on the step beside her and watched her study it like it was a math problem.  “I don’t think you’re a failure.  You made an army of smart robot babies!”

“They’re not _babies,_ and all of them are trying to kill you, Steven, you personally.  That doesn’t even bug you a little?”

“No, because, you’re smart, and the Crystal Gems are smart, so between the four of you I bet we can fix it as long as you don’t call them clods and germs and start cackling about stuff.”

“I don’t _cackle!”_

“Yeah, you do!  When you’re feeling all super-villain-y, you go…” Steven lowered his voice to give a tiny _“NYA-ha-ha-haa!”_

“…okay, fine, I cackle, but I don’t sound like _that_!”

“Let’s take it to the judges!”  Steven straightened up and called softly, “Garnet!  Does Peridot go nya-ha-ha-ha when she’s doing bad guy stuff?  Answer yes, or yes…?”

There was no answer, which was when Steven noticed that the Crystal Gems and Lapis were standing in the middle of the beach house, still as statues, looking at a shape in the shadows that hid most of the Temple and the warp pad.  A very large, very specific shape, which was sitting on the warp pad, elbows on knees, taking up a lot of space.

In the silence, when it seemed like not just Steven but the entire universe was holding its breath in shock, Peridot finally raised her head, focused on the problem at hand, said, “Oh _cludge,_ I knew I should have activated the laser defense system before we left,”and pressed her face back into the floorboards.

Pearl’s gem began to glow, and Steven hopped down the last two steps in case she was drawing her spear, but instead she just shone a searchlight-bright beam into the Temple area, illuminating their uninvited guest.

“Hello, Jasper,” Lapis said.  A second later, she yelped and dove for Steven, but wound up colliding with Garnet as he dodged them both and hopped up to sit on the warp pad next to Jasper.

For a second, Steven’s hands went all cold and the back of his neck got prickly.  Up close and personal, with no shielding, Jasper looked and _felt_ really, really huge.

She glanced at him, and then went back to examining her hands, face set in a sort of low-energy scowl.  “I’d ask you what you think you’re doing, but I don’t even know if _you_ know.”

“I was gonna ask you if you’d like some lemonade.”  Steven looked up at Jasper, who from his angle was mostly bicep and hair, and hazarded, “Maybe a protein shake?”

“Steven,” Garnet said, and for a second Steven’s entire spine turned to ice because that was _not_ Garnet’s it’s-okay-I-have-everything-under-control voice, it was Garnet trying to do that voice while hanging onto the edge of not-panicking by the tips of her fingers.  He’d heard it maybe twice, ever.  “I think that lemonade might be a good idea.  You should go get it.”

Steven slowly got off the warp pad, in case sudden movement might make Jasper turn hostile and wall-punchy, and wandered past Amethyst, who turned and casually followed him into the kitchen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steven saw Garnet relax slightly, and fold her arms.  “So.  Did you change your mind about something?”

Jasper lifted her head.

For a minute, in the kitchen, Steven was really, really worried, because the last time he’d seen that look of pure, soul-deep confusion had been right before Jasper started laughing maniacally and mistaking him for his mom in the forest.  Then she visibly…pulled herself together.

“I needed some time to think.”

“Go on,” Garnet said, her tone neutral.

“I don’t like any of you.  I don’t support what _you_ three stand for, and whatever the hell you other two are getting out of this farce, I want no part in it.”  Jasper stood up suddenly, and yup, she was _huge,_ she must have had to duck coming in to keep from smashing her face into a few of the roof’s lower cross-beams, the ones that had been built by Steven’s dad specifically to accommodate Garnet’s height and hair.  Her voice dropped to a menacing snarl.  “But I’ll tell you one thing _.  I no longer serve Yellow Diamond.”_   She went still and looked down.  “What?”

Steven stopped poking her hand to get her attention and held up a glass of lemonade.  “Congratulations!”  When Jasper looked at it with distaste, he added, “Don’t crush it against your forehead.  Or eat the glass.”

“Ro— _damn_ it,” Jasper growled, snatching the glass from him and downing it all in one go.  Her face wrinkled up.  “Blech.”

“So, you’re probably more of a grape juice fan, then.”

“R—ugh _Steven._ Just stop.  Go…do whatever it is _human_ kids do and stop staring at me.”

“I’m not staring at you, I’m waiting for you to give the glass back…”

“Stop _looking at me like **she** did.”_

Steven wordlessly turned and hurried back up to the loft stairs, where he sat down carefully, exactly halfway up.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl each checked to make sure where he was in relation to Jasper (but not Peridot, who was doing an excellent impression of a dropped two-by-four), before turning back to her.  Pearl said, “Well, that’s quite a significant step.  Have you, erm, thought about the next one?”

“You’ve got a robot problem.  I’ve got a lot of rage needs working out.  You see where I’m going with this?”

“Yes, and after that?”

Jasper hesitated.  “I…I don’t know.”

Pearl smiled cheerfully.  “In that case, welcome to life as an auxiliary Crystal Gem…”

“Are you being _irritating_ on _purpose?”_

“…the benefits package is terrible, and we do ask you not to destroy any household or Temple fixtures, or Peridot, and no punching humans.  However, the sense of world-saving accomplishment is unique and, well, very pleasant!  I’d almost say it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but without any actual.  Unpleasant.  Internal texture.”

“No.  No, you’re not, you’re just like this _all the time._ ”

“Steven wrote us a theme song,” Garnet said.  “It’s cute.  You’re going to have to let go of your hatred for all cute things while you’re working with us.”

“That’s not happening.”

_“Try.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting very close to the endgame here, everyone! Stay tuned!
> 
> (EDIT: I had envisioned the voice of the Gem Buster hive mind as Ellen McLain's, until For+Spite introduced me to SHODAN of System Shock fame. Please if you will imagine a slightly dumber and less malevolent version of SHODAN speaking for the Gem Busters (unless you want to, you know, ever sleep at night again). And add me to the list of petitioners who desperately want Sugilite to drop a rap verse in-show, because of reasons.)
> 
> (Additionally, if anyone is wondering, Greg didn't escape and warn the Gems about Jasper's sudden appearance for the same reason he didn't insist on driving them to the Gem Buster battle and helping out somehow: because he was dead to the world until about five minutes before they all got back to the beach house. Jasper is a very nasty alarm clock.)


	16. Town Hall Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crystal Gems find the beginning of a solution to their robot problem, Lapis discovers Lionspace is not her favourite place, Amethyst gets a visit from an old friend, Greg has a heart-to-heart with a couple of aliens who tried to kill his son, and Beach City's concerned citizens get involved.

By the time Connie shook Steven awake the next morning, it was 9:35 and the beach house was empty except for the two of them and a bowl of melted, untouched frozen yogurt by the front door.  Connie’s hair was sticking out in several directions, and from the pillow-creases on her face, she’d only woken up a few minutes ago herself.

“Muh?”

“Steven!  I just saw _Jasper_ outside talking to Pearl and Lapis!  What _happened_ last night?!”

Steven’s sleep-fogged brain reached for the simplest explanation.  “Uh, okay, you know how in _Phoenix Sphere_ the bad guy Furuuto eventually sort of comes over to the good guys?”

“Uh, I was never able to watch it because I started the series on _Super Phoenix Sphere QED_ and it was hard to take all those muscular people screaming about _qi_ power levels seriously.  But it’s sort of been absorbed into popular fan culture enough that I know exactly what you’re talking about.”  Connie clapped a hand over her mouth.  “ _That_ happened?  Please tell me Jasper’s not going to marry a scientist and wear pink shirts!”

“No, she’s just gonna help us fight robots, I think, that’s all.  Then she’ll probably…”  Steven tried to pick through what he remembered of the events of the previous night, before he’d fallen asleep on the stairs and Amethyst had hauled him back up into the loft and dumped him in a nest of pillows and sleeping bags.  “I don’t know _what_ she’s going to do after that.  She hates Homeworld now, or at least she hates Yellow Diamond, but I don’t think she wants to be a Crystal Gem or even be friends with us.  Maybe she’ll move to Australia and fight emus for the rest of her life.”

He and Connie sat for a minute and contemplated what that would look like.  Finally Connie said, “That’s a long time and a lot of emus.”

“I know.  And the emus don’t deserve that.  Maybe we can talk to her about it again after she’s cooled off by beating up some killer robots.”  Steven suddenly clutched his head.  “Except the robots are _smart_ and they _talked_ to us!  Should we really try to destroy them all?  Maybe they’re just confused.”

“Steven,” Connie said carefully.  “You remember watching the _Eliminator_ movies, right?”

“It was _so sad_ when he melted in the end!”

“And I showed you those play-throughs of _Shocked System_ and _Egress,_ right?  You remember DANSHO and CaROline?”

“I remember the soufflé that was supposed to be at the end but it wasn’t, and I also remember we skipped about seventy percent of _Shocked System_ because it was way too scary…wait, are you saying the Gem Buster AI is super-evil?”

Connie fidgeted with the hem of her overalls.  “Signs are really pointing to ‘yes’?  It doesn’t think of _you_ as a person, Steven, it just thinks you’re something it has to destroy.  Same with all the Gems, now.”

Steven pushed his hands through his hair to un-flatten it and sighed.  “Okay.  So…the Crystal Gems probably have a plan to fight it.  We’ll go with that, but…maybe we can find a way to kind of contain it instead and talk to it.  It hasn’t been alive for very long, maybe it’s just a cranky baby AI...”

“Maybe,” Connie said dubiously.  “First let’s see what kind of plan the Gems have in mind.”

* * *

 

“We don’t really have a plan,” Garnet said.

“We have forty-seven and a half plans,” Pearl countered.  “It’s just that none of them are viable.”

Connie and Steven both gave the Gems weird looks.  “And a half?”

Amethyst stuck a flipper up; she was lying on a rock on her back, in the form of a sea-lion, sunning herself.  “That one’s mine.  It’s basically “throw me at the AI’s face until it breaks”.  These guys don’t like it much but I think it should be our solid “B” Plan.”

Connie put a hand up.  “Ma’am, what counts as a non-viable plan?”

“That would be one that hinges on an aspect that has a 90% or higher probability of at least one Gem being crushed to shards as a result,” Peridot said, ensconced in the middle of a pile of scavenged tech that she’d plugged into herself.  Her fingers danced over several screens at once.  “In addition to a 40% or lower chance of achieving the mission objective.”

Steven went over to her and examined her arm-cones with interest.  “Hey, Peridot, your arm got better by itself!  I didn’t know it could do that.”

Peridot turned a bit greener than usual.  “Er, well…Pearl sort of…fixed it for me.”

“It was very intuitive,” Pearl said, settling cross-legged in the sand in the middle of where she’d been pacing it into a flat track.  “I can see the attraction of modular limbs, and the design is virtually idiot-proof, so it’s very simple to repair.  There’s still that one little burn-mark on it that I couldn’t buff out, which was…irritating, but I suppose I’ll just have to accept…”

Steven went up to Peridot, pulled out a Weeping Waffle sticker, and stuck it on the burn mark.  “There you go!  You look cool, nutritious, on-trend, and,” he made gun-fingers at her, “ _very_ hardcore.  If you want I could get you a themed band-aid for your face and then you’d look super tough.”

Peridot stared at the sticker, then at Steven, then back at the sticker.  She picked at it for a moment; her expression became one of total resignation.  “This is my life now.  I accept this waffle shame.”

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Lapis said, perched up higher on a cliff crag and swinging her legs back and forth, hands braced down by her hips.  “Hi, Steven.  Maybe we’ll be able to come up with a better plan now that you’re here.”

“I don’t know about that.  Sorry, Steven, it’s not you, because the problem isn’t the configuration,” Garnet said, leaning on Amethyst’s basking rock with her arms crossed.  “The problem is numbers.  Even with Jasper, we’re only fielding seven Gems against an enormous army of intelligent robots wielded by an artificial mind whose capacity we’re not fully aware of.”

“That’s not _precisely_ accurate,” Peridot protested.

“Then explain again.”

“Alright, for the human children in the audience, I found what I _assumed_ was the AI’s sub-network on the Homeworld’s extranet and rained down some _really exciting_ fire on it.”  Peridot looked sulky for a moment.  “Pearl dug around in there this morning after I started screaming about it and found out it was a dummy system.  No _wonder_ it was soaking up everything I threw at it.  Anyway, Pearl and I managed to find the real system.”

“Wow!  Good job, you guys!  High-fives!”

Pearl held her hand up for a high-five from Steven, then settled him down before he could start patting Peridot, who only had two fingers to spare.  “The problem is that we can’t break into it because the system is using every Gem Buster’s processor to rotate the protective code that lets the AI keep functioning without interference.  That’s why the individual Gem Busters are relatively unintelligent, they’re trying to run and protect the primary hive AI’s subroutine while hunting us at the same time.  No wonder they prioritize organics as non-threats, they’re not clever enough to manage a highly complex friend-or-foe programming outside the Homeworld’s direct input parameters.”  She put her hand to her chin.  “What’s bothering me is the power they’d need to piggyback their secondary network _and_ operate a hive mind while maintaining security.  Even if they’d built thousands of Gem Busters, it still wouldn’t be enough to sustain the kind of memory and power the swarm would require to do all this.”

“Could they be leeching power from something else?” Garnet prompted.  “Nearby towns, big cities?”

“They’d have to be tapping into the entire man-made power-generating infrastructure of the Earth, and if they were, there would have been global rolling blackouts and we’d have heard about it.”

“You think they’re using stolen Gem tech?”

“It seems far more likely…”

“Could they be taking tech from the original exploration fleet graveyard?”

“Nah, we checked it out before they smashed the warp pad going there,” Amethyst said idly, rolling over and shifting back into humanoid form to pick up the paper copy of the warp map.  She held it up over her face so that the sun shone through the paper and the lines of it cast shadows on her features.

Connie pressed her hands against the rock and squinted up at the map.  “They’ve destroyed a _lot_ of warp pads.”

“There’s a couple of far-flung ones still standing, and they haven’t touched the Galaxy Warp that we’ve seen, or the Kindergarten warp,” Garnet said.

Lapis, who’d been staring down at the map while Amethyst glared up at it, said suddenly, “I used to hate using warp pads.”

“But they’re _fun,_ Bob,” Amethyst said with a toothy little grin.

“No, I mean…I don’t _know_ much about warp pads.  Flying was just so much easier, and I never bothered to find out how they work.  If you destroy part of a warp network, where does the power from the destroyed warp go?  Does it just dissipate?”

“Nah, it gets funneled into the undamaged pads and stored there.  Like, not so that you get whooshed up the warp like some kind of crazy out of control fast waterslide ‘cause there’s too much power, it just hangs out there until the rest of the network gets repaired, then kinda flows back out again so the dead pads re-activate instantly.”

“That’s exactly right, Amethyst,” Pearl said, and then froze, eyes widening.  “Exactly…right…”  She suddenly surged up and snatched the map from Amethyst.  “Oh, no no no, how could I be so _blind?_ It’s right here!  It’s not just to trap us, it’s to concentrate an ambient Gem-created power source, how could I have missed this…?”

_“Pearl!”_   Pearl froze.  Garnet approached her and put a calming hand on her shoulder.  “Relax.  I think I see where you’re going.  It’s a _good_ theory, but we have to make certain it’s correct.  How can we confirm it?”

“Oh, ah, well…if they’re really piggybacking off the warp pads, we need to visit the farthest-flung warp from Beach City.  _If_ our hypothesis is correct, the Gem Busters that destroyed it would have lost connectivity as soon as the warp’s power went down, and they’d be either immobilized or left thrashing around.”  Pearl looked as if she’d swallowed a worm for a moment, and then rolled her eyes at herself.  “Of course, that would require a _functioning warp pad_ in that location…”

“Not necessarily,” Garnet said.  “We just need alternative transportation.  Steven, where’s Lion got to?”

* * *

 

Steven and Connie climbed onto Lion without any trouble, but as soon as Amethyst and Pearl got on, he promptly sat down, causing them to slide off him and fall over into an undignified heap.

“Fine, _jerk,”_ Amethyst growled, helping Pearl to her feet and glaring at Lion.  “You could’ve just _said.”_

Garnet pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Lion, listen.  We _can’t_ just send Steven and Connie alone into danger.  They need at least one Gem with them to help them make a quick getaway if there are active Gem Busters around the warp pad.”

Lion just blinked at her and yawned.

Peridot and Lapis glanced at each other, and Lapis stuck a hand in the air.  “Um.  He works through portals, right?  He can keep them open for someone besides himself?  Because we can both fly.  He wouldn’t need to carry us.”

Lion examined her with a critically feline eye, and sneezed.

“That probably means it’s okay,” Steven said, patting Lion between the ears.  “Whoever comes with me has to hold my hand, though, just in case.  For safety.”

Peridot looked at Lion, looked at her nice safe setup, and stared pleadingly at Lapis.

“I’ll go,” Lapis said to Garnet.  “If anything goes wrong, I can get Steven and Connie clear pretty quickly.”

Garnet nodded.  “You’d be my first choice.  Go and come back safely.”

Lapis hesitated.  “What about the other new, uh, team member?”

“Greg's got it covered.  Look after the children.  Lion?”

Lion grunted.

“Behave yourself.”

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Lapis was clutching Steven’s hand for dear life, water wings flapped out like a hang glider as Lion towed her along over the surface of the ocean.  “How is he _doing this?”_

“Magic lion!” Steven called up to her, over the sound of wind rushing in his ears.

“Why is he so _fast?!”_

“Magic!”  Steven clamped his legs tightly around Lion’s sides so Lapis didn’t lift him into the air by accident, and Connie did the same and hung onto Steven’s waist.  “Get ready, I think he’s gonna roar!”

“He’s going to what?  _AHH!”_

Lion’s roar came in a burst of pink, and he leapt through the portal, dragging them all through pink space, and then out onto a sandy beach.

Lapis flew face-first into the sand, sat up, wiped her face, looked confused for a moment, and then spat out a hermit crab and scrubbed her mouth as the kids climbed off Lion and hurried to her side.  “Honestly, I don’t think I like travelling by Lion any more than I like travelling by warp.”

“We only have to get back home and then you don’t have to take Lion Air anymore,” Steven reassured her, as Connie patted his shoulder wordlessly.  “Connie, you okay?”

Connie pointed.

A little ways along the beach, chunks of destroyed warp pad littered the sand, along with the remains of a pair of Gem Busters.  Steven and Connie approached them with caution; Lapis took to the air and hovered just behind them, the three of them staring at the robots’ lightless scanners.

Finally, Connie said, “It looks like they just…burst from the inside.”

Steven held up his phone and started taking pictures.  “The other Gems are _really_ gonna need to see this.”

A tinny, unpleasantly familiar whirring sound was all the warning they got before a third Gem Buster, smoking and stuttering, burst out of the trees and staggered up the beach towards them.

Steven popped his shield up and Connie went for her sword, but Lapis simply snatched them both, one under each arm, and made her wings enormous.  “Nope, not now, this is _not_ a good idea!”  She bolted a few steps, took flight, and skimmed low over the ocean with the kids hanging from her shoulders.

_“Lion!”_ Steven called, as Lion snarled and darted at the Gem Buster.  The enormous robot tried to strike him with a claw, missed, and fell over.  Lion dodged its falling form and sprinted out onto the ocean, catching up with Lapis quickly.

“Lion, we need to get back to the Crystal Gems, now, _please,”_ Lapis shouted.  One roar later, a portal appeared in front of her and she flew straight into it with a scream, Lion leaping through after her.  It closed, leaving nothing but thin air.

* * *

 

This time, Lapis did better, somersaulting and skidding backwards to a three-point landing on Steven’s home beach without her water-wings as Steven and Connie clung to her like limpets.  Lion came after her, stood looking noble for a moment, and then went off to sniff at a beached jellyfish.

The three Crystal Gems and Peridot stared at them open-mouthed.  Garnet finally cleared her throat.  “That was quick.”

“We got pictures,” Steven said.  “And attacked by a Gem Buster that was about ninety-nine percent dead, we got that too.”

Lapis said the kids down, wandered over to the rocks, leaned on one, and said, “Excuse me, I just.  I have to.  Go.  Do something with my stomach.”

“Throw up?”  Amethyst suggested.

“That’s.  That’s the one.”

Amethyst sighed.  “Yeah, sorry, that’s the least fun part of a digestive system.  I’ll go get you a bucket.  Pearl, anything cool in Steven’s new selfie collection?”

Steven had handed his phone to Pearl, who scrolled through the pictures, her eyes getting rounder.  “Why…yes, actually, this is _very_ cool!  We might be onto something here!”

“So they _are_ destroying the warps to concentrate their power, as well as to block us in,” Garnet said, crouching and dusting the kids off.

Peridot’s nose scrunched up.  “What if we destroyed the warps that were left ourselves?”

“Good suggestion, not workable.  They must have scouts monitoring the warps that are left to them.  As soon as we moved in, the swarm would either deploy a team of Gem Busters to come after us like before, or just wait for us to destroy the warp and then move in on us while we can’t escape.”

“And there’s no guarantee that would destroy the AI, only render it dormant,” Pearl said, still studying the pictures.  “But…hmm.  We may have the makings of a viable plan here.  Steven, Connie, Lapis, excellent work!”  She handed Steven his phone back, laced her fingers together, and stretched her arms out and up.  “Now it’s _my_ turn.  Peridot, are you in?”

“Yeah,” Peridot said.  “My back’s starting to hurt and I’m getting a headache.  What’s your big idea?”

Pearl’s eyes gleamed.  “Have you ever heard of the human expression “Trojan horse”?”

* * *

 

“Okay, Pearl, one more time for the cheap seats,” Amethyst said, patting the couch where she’d taken up seats with Garnet, Steven, Connie, and Lapis.

“I’d be delighted!  Peridot, the touch-screen, if you please.”  Pearl paused as Peridot shot her a less than impressed look and put up a finger-screen as long as Pearl was tall, leaving her with only two spare fingers again.  “Oh!  Ahaha, I only just got that!  It’s funny!  This is a good sign.  Where was I?  Oh, yes, Trojan horses!  Well, in this case it’s less of a horse, more of a bomb.”

Amethyst perked up.  “A _bomb?”_

“An _energy_ bomb!”  Pearl said enthusiastically, grabbing a pointer and whipping design schematics and what appeared to be equations in a strange language across the screen.  “They’ve equipped themselves to sap ambient power from active Gem devices to manage the weight of their network, and probably with it their new more advanced design, and of course the most accessible, reliable, and powerful devices on Earth are the warp pads, and of course they have the added advantage of being easy to locate and thus tap into!  Destroying the warps not only serves the purpose of cornering the AI’s targets—that is to say, all of us—but also of concentrating the warp network’s power down to a few geographically proximate points to the Gem Buster swarm.”  She hesitated and turned her back on her audience, jabbing impatiently at the screen.  “On the other hand, that’s not quite accurate, is it…?”

“Pearl,” Amethyst called.

Pearl waved impatiently.  “Just a second, Amethyst, I’ve _almost_ got it…”

“Pearl,” Garnet said, “you just grabbed Peridot’s finger to use as a pointer.”

Pearl turned bright blue, looked down at the small green object in her hand, and offered the glowering Peridot an awkward smile.  “Um.  Oops?”  Peridot continued to glare at her until she delicately put the finger back on Peridot’s left hand, where it stayed, floating and pointed upwards next to its fellow.  “Sorry.  I’ll…just use a marker…a _marker…”_

“Eureka,” Garnet said with a tiny smile.

“Yes!  Yes, that’s exactly it!  It’s not the _swarm_ that has to be proximate to the power source, it’s the _queen,_ the AI control centre!  The swarm can go anywhere, it must be drawing most of its processing power from the queen, but, ah, _but,_ the control centre must not be able to move very far from its established power source!” Pearl rubbed her hands together with glee.  “We can track it down to its den!  And the best part is, we can use what we found in Steven’s photos against the rest of the swarm.  Destroying a warp pad usually only releases a very small amount of magical energy, but since the Gem Busters are so attuned to that energy, it creates a blowback that even their systems can’t handle.”  Pearl hesitated, glanced at Peridot, and cleared her throat.  “Actually, I got the idea from watching your device deactivate the plug robonoids the first time you left Earth.”

Peridot gave her a startled look.  “Seriously?”

“I even tried to replicate it, but my results were…mixed.”  Pearl ignored Amethyst’s snicker.  “However, I believe with the two of us working together, we might be able to create a large-scale version of that device that would wipe out the swarm and the queen in one blow, using the warp pad as an amplifier.”

“What?!  NO!”  Peridot snatched all her fingers back, screens blinking out of existence, and waved her hands at Pearl.  “No, for one thing, if you tried to plop the device right on top of the thing it was overloading, it’d blow a hole the size of Kepler-FZ7 in this planet!  And for another, you’d have those Gem Busters running in at you the moment you popped out of the pad!  It’d be a suicide mission, and a dumb one!”

“She has a point,” Garnet admitted. 

Pearl gave her a hurt look, then breathed deeply and steepled her fingers together before turning back to Peridot.  “Alright.  I am open to alternate suggestions.”

Peridot suddenly looked hunted.  “Uhh…I…don’t really know…”

“Well, come on, you’re the one who created them!  You know all sorts of ridiculous things about newfangled Gem technology, you should be the one throwing out new ideas…”

“I’m…I’m…I’m _not good at new ideas!”_

Pearl gestured sharply at her forehead gem.  “And do I look like I was farmed to be Homeworld’s most creative, outside-the-box thinker?  Come on, Peridot, _try!_ I know you’re more than capable of it.”

Peridot started looking everywhere except for at Pearl, and sweating.  “Okay…look, there’s got to be a…something where we could…um…maybe if we… _Steven,_ I know you’re probably trying to contribute but stop trying to pull my finger off!”

Steven hung on and stared up at her wide-eyed.  “I just got an idea that’s so far outside the box, it’s running out the store and into the parking lot!  Shopping carts are flying all over the place, this idea’s going so fast!  So, it’s like this,” he said to Pearl and Peridot, “what if instead of going to the warp pad with a big magic bomb, we made lots of _little_ magic bombs—about this size maybe so they can’t blow holes in the planet—and then lure the Gem Busters in so they step on the bombs and go kaboom and fall over?  Mission accomplished!”

Pearl cocked her head.  “Why that size?”

“Because it’s easy and convenient to carry and you can stick it in the ground so it stays there instead of rolling around like a ball.  And I just like the shape.  Cylinders, so cool.”

“Steven, that’s a terrible idea,” Peridot said, and then paused, her eyes slowly widening.  She turned to Pearl.  Steven looked back and forth between them, grinned, and went to plunk himself back down between Connie and Garnet.  “Unless…”

Pearl nodded slowly, her own eyes going wide.  “Would it be workable?”

“Yes!  The remote power detonator can be miniaturized and duplicated easily!”

“What’s the range on that?”

“Ah, hmm, about two thousand meters?”

“Closer than I’d like, but it’s better than anything we’ve come up with!  How powerful can we make them?”

“Capsule-sized?  Enh, one or two would be a joke…but a ring of, say, fifty or sixty, ooh, we could pump that power _straight into_ the warp pad’s core system!” Peridot developed a maniacal grin.  “Even better, I could _load_ it with the kind of viruses I could _never_ manage on remote!  Let’s see that stupid AI try to fight off a hull-mutagenic that came out of its own _power supply,_ nyahahahaha…okay, fine, yes, I _do_ laugh like that and it _does_ sound stupid.  But I make no apologies!”

Pearl clenched her fists and did a little dance of glee.  “YES!  A ring of tiny pulse devices that’ll transfer a small power surge to the warp pad remotely, overloading it within our range of control, minimizing the damage radius—if we calculate right, we can restrict the area of effect to no more than a kilometer across and even then it’ll just be a mild scorching—and completely destroying the AI _and_ the Gem Busters from the inside out!”

There was a round of applause from the couch (except from Lapis, who just looked furrowed and slightly twitchy), and Amethyst chanted, _“Go Team Nerd!  Go Team Nerd!  It’s your birthday!”_  

Pearl turned very blue and composed herself, scratching the back of her neck.  “I suppose it does take a little prompting to think outside the box.  Thank you, Steven.” She nudged Peridot.

“Hm?  Oh!  Right, yeah, thank you, if it weren’t for your weird little brain I’d still be choking on my own tongue.  But _now,_ now we have a _plan!”_

“It’s not bad,” Garnet allowed.  “I like it a lot better than all the other ones we came up with.  But it raises the question of how to get all the Gem Busters into an area no more than four kilometers in diameter.  They’re concentrating themselves around Beach City, but obviously there’s a lot of them out in far-flung regions scavenging for parts, and they’ve proven themselves capable of accessing the most remote warp pads.  What’ll we use to guarantee _all_ of them returning to the control AI area at the same time?”

Pearl met Garnet’s gaze and twiddled her index fingers nervously.  Amethyst stopped grinning.  Lapis gave a tiny nod, as if someone had just answered a question she’d been waiting to ask.  Then all four of them looked at the kids.

Peridot shrugged.  “ _That’s_ the easy part.  The hard part is going to be manufacturing the devices!  I mean, we can work with metal, but a polymer structure would be more ideal to facilitate the burst, it’d melt much more effectively.  It needs to be something soft, yet strong enough to contain the detonator hardware…”

Steven held up a hand, and then held up his phone.  “Way ahead of you.”  As Connie and the Gems watched, he dug into his contacts and dialed a number, and waited.  And waited.  Eventually, he perked up.  “Sour Cream!  It’s Steven Universe!  Haha, no, it’s okay, I know you didn’t pick up because your ears were busy with the sickest beats ever.  Uh-huh.  Yep!  So, uh, can I ask you a faaaaavour?”  He mimed twirling a non-existent phone cord, making Connie snort and giggle.  “Remember those five hundred dead glow sticks you had in that huge box?  Does your mom still want them for that one art installation she was gonna do?  She doesn’t?  Cool!  Can we have ‘em?”

* * *

 

Vidalia drove Sour Cream to the beach house and helped him deliver four boxes of lifeless glow sticks up the stairs and into the house, at which point she and Amethyst caught sight of each other, screamed, and pounced on one another, swearing and hugging and ruffling each other’s hair.

Sour Cream seemed to take this in stride and simply took the box his mother had been holding and handed it to Steven.  “Yeah, I forgot your short mom was friends with my mom…mom.  You holding steady, Steven?”

“Steady as she goes,” Steven agreed, putting the box on the couch for Peridot to pry open and examine.

“Cool.  Mom,” Sour Cream went on, “I’m just gonna go over to Fish Stew Pizza, Jenny’s dad’s unloading on her about that thing with the video and she’s probably gonna need someone to hang out with for a while once he’s done yelling the restaurant down.”

Vidalia briefly emerged from the nest of Amethyst’s hair to address her son.  “Sure, that’s fine.  You think Buck’s going to tag along?”

“Nah, he’s stuck doing college application stuff with his dad.  The three of us might come over later, though.”

“Ahh, go ahead, you know where I hide all the good food.  Just don’t set anything on fire, and don’t forget to remind your crew that they gotta ask Onion first before they take selfies with his python.”

“Done and done,” Sour Cream agreed, but paused halfway out the door and turned to Steven.  “Okay, I know this is super-invasive, but what do you need five hundred glow sticks for?”

“Research,” said Garnet.

“Research,” Pearl agreed.

“I’d tell you, but I would have to ensure you didn’t leave this location alive,” Peridot said flatly.

“We’re using them to make little energy bombs that’ll stop the robots that are trying to kill all the Gems,” Steven said.

Sour Cream shrugged.  “’Kay, makes sense.  Hey, was that huge orange lady that was tearing up the boardwalk a couple days ago the same one I just saw hanging out by your dad’s carwash?”

Steven froze.  “Ye-es?”

Sour Cream saw his expression and nodded carefully.  “I’m going back that way.  I’ll call you if I see anything weird.  She just looks like she’s chilling, there’s no blood or mayhem or whatever.”

“So, you’re not worried…?” Connie prompted him.

“Mn, he’s heard all my bad trip stories,” Vidalia assured her, then paused and looked from her to Steven as her son departed.  “I mean stories about _other people’s_ bad trips.  Goddamn, Amethyst, it’s been so _long,_ I didn’t even recognize Steven!”

“Haha, I didn’t recognize your mug!  Or your huge kid.  Holy cow, he’s _tall,_ like, taller’n me!”

“Well, I didn’t recognize your fancy new outfit, either.  Good style.”  Vidalia patted Amethyst’s shoulder affectionately and looked over it.  “Garnet, Pearl, long time no see.”

“Hello, Vidalia,” Pearl said carefully.

“Nice to see you again,” Garnet said.  “What happened to your jacket?”

Vidalia shrugged and patted her belly.  “After two kids, it wouldn’t fit closed around all this.  Why, you want it to borrow?”

“No, it was just a nice jacket.  Very iconic.  Amethyst can’t come with you to hang around in your car and intimidate people today, sorry.  We’ve got to keep her busy.”

Vidalia looked at Amethyst, who made a fake-miserable face at her.  “They made me get a _job,_ girl.  Nine-to-five grind, working for the man.”  She brushed away an imaginary tear, her voice choking up with emotion.  “I can feel myself…becoming…a business suit…”

Vidalia pinched her cheek, and then got her in a headlock and ruffled her hair.  “Aw, my heart _bleeds_ for you, honey, just freaking bleeds…oh, hey, Steven, sorry, never introduced myself.  Name’s Vidalia, I’m Sour Cream and Onion’s mom.  Me and your dad and Amethyst, we used to hang out!”

“Ohhh, you must be _so_ cool!  She’s obviously a matured Cool Kid,” Steven whispered to Connie, who hid a smile.  “Like my dad.  She might even be a Ur-Cool Kid.”  He raised his voice again.  “It’s really nice to meet you!  Uh, your sons, really great guys!  So this is Connie Maheswaran, she’s my best friend, and this is Lapis Lazuli, who you haven’t met yet…”

Vidalia cocked her head at Lapis, who sighed.  “Yes, I stole the ocean.  I put it back.  I’m very sorry.”

“No, no, that’s not it, I didn’t even know who you were, I just thought…”  Vidalia looked questioningly at Amethyst, who shook her head and made the ‘kill it’ gesture across her throat.  Vidalia shrugged.  “Nah, it’s good, nice to meet you.  I’ve been a little busy with some local gallery stuff lately, you could’ve stolen the roof off my house and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“I’m Peridot,” Peridot volunteered.

Vidalia exchanged a look with Amethyst and developed a tiny, evil grin.  “I dunno, Amethyst, _this_ one looks kinda shady.  She has this look about her that says…”

“Just because she cackles, doesn’t mean she’s a supervillain!  Anymore,” Steven said hastily.

“I was gonna say ‘traffic cop’ but hey, sure.”

Amethyst nudged Vidalia in the ribs.  “Steven here stole her ride and totally went for a little joy buzz with it.”

“You’re _kidding_ me?”

“No, for real, he mowed down some haystacks, raced Jenny with it, did donuts...”

Vidalia hooted with glee.  “Oh my god are you _ever_ Greg’s kid through and through!”  She winked at Peridot.  “Welcome to Earth, kiddo.  Boy, are you in for some culture shock.  Hey, Amethyst, come around more, will you?  Bring the girls, bring Steven, bring your new friends.  I know Onion’d love to have you over, and as long as nobody knocks over Sour Cream’s setup, he’s pretty relaxed about guests, just be warned he sometimes falls asleep in weird places like behind the couch.”

Amethyst scratched her chin.  “I dunno, could your ancient human heart take the excitement?”

“I’ll put on the Dead Leaves and _show_ you who can’t take the excitement…” Vidalia wound down, paused, and glanced at Steven.  “What was that Steven said about robots trying to kill you?”

Amethyst waved a hand airily.  “Long story, no big, it’s just more of the usual.  We got this under control.”

For a second, Vidalia got a strange look on her face, but then it passed and she simply said her goodbyes to the Gems and kids, hugged Amethyst one last time, and sloped away in her house slippers, away down to the beach and her car.

Amethyst’s smile became a little fainter, and she blinked and turned back to Pearl.  “Man.  That was…weird.  Good, but weird.  I gotta…man, it’s really been a _while,_ hasn’t it.”

“I suppose,” Pearl said.  “Well…perhaps you should go visit her, and I’ll come with you, and we can drink tea…”

“P, no.”

“…and read the newspaper together _quietly…_ ”

“P, _noooo…_ ”

“What was _with_ that woman?” Peridot demanded.

“She and Amethyst used to commit _crimes_ together,” Pearl said flatly.

“It was the _best,”_ Amethyst agreed, grinning.  “We set a dumpster full of bathrobes on fire once.  Ahhh, good times, good times…”

“Fine, but I don’t like her, and I am _not_ anyone’s ‘kiddo’,” Peridot said haughtily.  “I’m three hundred and eighteen years old!  What’s she supposed to be in human years?  Five?  Sixteen?”

Unexpectedly, at least to Steven and Connie, every other Gem in the room burst out laughing.  Even Garnet had to muffle a snicker.  Peridot gave them all deeply wounded looks.  “What?  _What?”_

“That…explains a lot,” Garnet said, clearing her throat and composing herself.

“Oh, whatever, I hope all of you come down with a case of platypuses, now let’s get these…ooh.”  Peridot held up a glow stick.  “They’re _perfect!”_

“Steven knows his stuff,” Connie said, popping one open.  “Now, we have to be careful about disposing of the contents, you can’t just pour it down the sink, it’s toxic…”

“I got an empty biohazard canister in my room,” Amethyst assured her.  “Be riiight back!”

“Okay, Steven, we should probably get some plastic gloves on…” Connie looked around.  “Steven?”

Lapis stood up.  “I’ll go find him.  I’ll be back shortly.”

“Don’t take all day,” Peridot warned her.  “We need the extra pair of hands!”

* * *

 

Steven ran all the way to It’s A Wash, and then flopped down and belly-crawled through the foliage that grew between the cliff face and the crumbling brick wall that blocked off the car wash’s concrete lot.  He listened for any telltale sounds, and then risked a peek.

The lights on the fluorescent elephant were off, and Greg had parked his van out of sight between the back of the carwash and the cliff, on a narrow strip of concrete that was only visible if you walked by on the beach side or deliberately came around the building; you couldn’t see it from the main road.

Jasper was also leaning against the side of the van, arms crossed, one leg braced against the passenger door, eyes shut.  She was wearing headphones, and an expression of ferocious, frowning concentration, an old walkman clutched in her hand like a tiny toy.

Steven’s dad had set himself up in a beach chair in front of the hood of the van, overlooking the sea, and he had all his arms and legs and a stack of eight-track tapes on a milk crate, and wasn’t screaming.  He looked a little thoughtful, and a lot far away.  Eventually, as Steven watched, he seemed to come back to himself, and said something to get Jasper’s attention.

Jasper immediately lifted the headphones off and glared down at him.  “What?”

“I said, how’s the music?”

Jasper’s mouth twisted.  “I don’t know.”

“Huh.  Screamin’ Susie and the Thumbscrews not to your taste?”  Greg scratched his pate.  “Man, I thought they’d be right up your alley…”

“I didn’t say I _disliked_ it.  Good cadence, the lyrics are appropriate.  It’s like tearing someone’s head off and gutting them _in my mind,_ but it’s just music.  Seems like a waste of good bloodlust.”

“Oh, I dunno, there’s a long human tradition of pumping up for a big fight with tough music.  I had a buddy who worked the festival circuit who was from Aotearoa, he tried to teach me to _haka_ but I kept accidentally elbowing him in the face so he gave up.”  Greg fished his guitar out from under the beach chair and strummed a few chords absent-mindedly.  “Enh, I’ve always been more of a lover than a fighter, myself.  Anyway, that was before I ended up with Marty as my manager…lost a lot of friends after I started hanging out with Marty, come to think of it.  It couldn’t have been easy for ‘em, y’know, watching me trail him around like a puppy, all that “Star Child” business…”

Jasper squinted at Greg, then at the ocean.  After a moment, like someone probing at a broken tooth, she said, “This…Marty.  He was your commanding officer?”

“Oh, hah, nah, nothing that formal.  He could be a real drill sergeant when it came to some stuff, I mean, don’t get me wrong, merch prep was a nightmare, I was getting hand cramps off pre-autographing all those CDs…and he wouldn’t even set up the tables and chairs, did that myself too…I mean, I guess I learned a lot from him…”

“So when did you realize you were being taken for a _sucker_ and gut him like he was asking for?”

Steven tried not to rustle the leaves as he flinched.

Greg turned and gave Jasper as close as he got to a narrow look, which just came off as mildly concerned.  “Well, I met someone, and he…wasn’t exactly supportive, pretty much the opposite.  That was when I finally figured out that…even if he _did_ have a grand plan for us breaking into the big leagues, would I really want to do it with _him_ on my side?  Or my back, more like it.  Like, was it really worth giving up the chance to…anyway, I kicked him out of my van!  I still feel a little bad about it, it _was_ raining, but I mean, it wasn’t so far off from the next bus station.  But anyway, now I’m here and now Steven’s here, and, y’know, sometimes good things can come out of bad situations.  Just saying.”

“That’s another thing.  Why are you just talking to me and handing me music when you _know_ I tried to murder your, your child?”

“Yeah, Pearl was explaining to me that if you try to hang your body together when your Gem’s cracked, it takes it out of your self-control instead and you turn into this…weird id-monster you.  Explains a lot about Lapis, boy, was that ever a rough ride.  I won’t lie, between you and her, you scared the dickens out of me.  And that’s not counting where you kidnapped Steven and tried to hand him over to his mom’s worst enemy.”

Jasper set the walkman down with exaggerated care, shifted to lean on the brick wall, and stared down her nose at Greg, who craned his neck a little and winced at the stretch.  “And you’re just sitting here.”

“Yeah.  Probably seems weak, right?  Like I’m trying to placate you or something.  Music to soothe the savage breast, and don’t take that the wrong way…”

“It doesn’t feel weak.  It feels like you’re up to something.”

“I’ll be straight with you, I am.”  Greg pulled a pair of sunglasses off the milk crate and put them on.  “There, now I’m automatically a little bit cooler.  Look, I love my son.  There’s a part of me that’s…probably going to be furious with you for the rest of my life, and never be able to 100% trust you, because you looked at my kid once, my sweet little boy who just wants everybody to be happy and tries to be kind to everyone and everything he meets, and thought “I want him dead”.  I hate to say it but there’s probably gonna be a little part of me that feels that way _forever_ about all three of you Homeworld Gems, even Lapis, and I _know_ she loves Steven now.  He’s a good, smart, sweet kid, the light of my life, and you tried to take him away from me because of some alien war he doesn’t even know about.  I don’t like that that’s part of who I am now, but it’s something I’ll get used to.  Who knows?  Sometimes good things come out of bad.  You might wind up being some of the sixth or seventh or eighth best things that ever happened to Steven.”

Jasper grunted.  “You should have told him about the war.  Being ignorant isn’t going to cut any ice with Gems.”

“The Crystal Gems didn’t want him to grow up with that hanging over his head,” Greg said, his tone going flat.  “I agreed.”

“So you _do_ have a little fight in you.  I was wondering.”

“Yeah, well, I could challenge you to a duel or whatever and get my face beaten into the ground just like Peridot, and it’s just all more violence. Where does that get us?  All it does is reinforce all that might makes right business.  So I just wanted to talk to you.  See where your head’s at.  Listening to people doesn’t always solve everything, and it doesn’t make you best friends, but I figure, what does it hurt to at least try?”

Jasper crossed her arms and growled, then went silent.  After a bit she said, very quietly, “I don’t understand _any_ of this.”

Greg exhaled.  “That’s life on Earth for you.  Rose said it was hard.  Time moves faster for us and humans don’t work the way Gems do, and Steven has his own little niche somewhere in the middle where he’s not exactly like me and he’s not exactly like his mom.  All of that’s going to look like something you can’t adjust to if all you knew was the Gem Homeworld military.  Hey, you can have a seat.  That wall won’t break, it looks shady but it’s actually pretty tough.”

Jasper sat.  Steven held his breath.  And then there was the sound of someone kicking metal rhythmically.

Jasper and Greg both turned to look up.  Lapis was sitting on the roof, drumming her heels on the side of the van.  She glanced down at them.  “So I take it Steven’s not here.”

“Go _away,”_ Jasper snarled.

“Hey, it’s my van and my carwash,” Greg reminded her, and glanced up at Lapis.  “You can stay, but what’s this about Schtuu-ball?”

“He left the beach house.  I thought he might have come here.”

Steven wondered if she’d seen him from the air, and then hunkered down a little more so that his eyes were exactly level with the top of the brick wall, and slowly manoeuvred a branch so that it was positioned over his head like a hat.

“He didn’t,” Jasper bit out, “so why don’t you just _go?”_

For a moment, it looked like Lapis was going to do just that, from the look of dislike on her face, but then Greg took his sunglasses off, caught her eye and gave her a Steven-proof nod, incomprehensible.  Lapis’ shoulders slumped and she sighed.  “Listen.  We both know how this mission is likely to turn out.  The Crystal Gems have come up with a better plan, but it’s still going to be dangerous, and we’re probably going to have to use their kind of unconventional tactics…”

“I am _not forming **Malachite** with you, **ever.”**_

Lapis started and blurted out, shock written all over her face, “What?!  _NO!_ No, I wouldn’t fuse with _you_ if you were the last Gem in the known universe!”

“What?  _Me?_ You wouldn’t let me _go!”_

“Yes, well, _turnabout is fair play,_ and by the way, Gemhandling and emotionally blackmailing your _prisoner_ isn’t a great prelude to fusion, maybe next time try soft music and a walk on the beach!”

“I may have shoved you in a cell but _I_ didn’t try unmake _your_ mind!”

“I had no choice!  You were going to hurt Steven!”

“ _I_ had no choice!  My mission was going to _fail, I_ was going to fail, and anyway, you _hated_ the Crystal Gems, I had your debrief and interrogation records!”

“I didn’t hate them _as much as I hated you,”_ Lapis snarled, and then caught herself, saw Greg’s appalled look, and turned away, pulling her knees up to her chest away from Jasper.  Steven had seen her do that before, in the cell on the green hand ship, but this time, she set her shoulders and looked ocean-wards.  “I’m…sorry.”

Jasper’s expression changed from enraged to baffled.  “You’re _what?_ For _Malachite_?”

“ _No._  You and I both had a hand in making her the mess she is.  You wouldn’t let me go, so I wouldn’t let you go.  No, I’m sorry because…I know what it’s like to lose everything you thought was real.  Everything you depended on to be who you were.”  Lapis pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked skyward.  “It’s…frightening.  And if there’s one thing I know you hate, it’s being afraid.”

Greg glanced at Jasper’s stricken face, then up at Lapis, then he started picking out a few notes; F, G, C, C7, then F again… “That’s a hard place to be in.”

“You’d know,” Jasper said gruffly.  Steven couldn’t see her face now, she’d deliberately turned away from both Lapis and Greg.

“I would.  Ask Pearl about it sometime.  Or Amethyst.  Garnet, too.”  Greg set his guitar down.  “Rose meant so much to…well, to all of us.  Now she’s gone.”  He shrugged and stood up.  “We’ll still here, though.  Can’t waste that, especially not right now.  Lapis, you said the Gems have some kind of plan?”

“They’re building little machines to knock the robots out, and they think they can track down the AI “queen” thing and keep it and the swarm in one place until the machines take effect.”

“Well, then, take me back to Kansas City, and by Kansas City I mean the beach house!  I’m gonna help out this time.  Jasper, you coming, orrr…you know what,” Greg said, in the face of Jasper’s expression, “I’ll just leave you here.  If you get bored with the Thumbscrews, I got a whole stack of good solid heavy metal here.”

Jasper looked around Greg at the milk crate.  “Those are plastic.”

“It’s a music genre!  Heavy metal.  Right here, you can check out Iron Balloon, Superlyfe, Murderer, Chrome Sheen…”

“Yo, Greg!”

Steven ducked down behind the wall at the sound of a familiar hearty bellow.  Avoiding being seen by Lapis, Jasper, and his dad, only to get caught by Barb the Mailman, would be disastrous and kind of embarrassing.  Fortunately, Barb just marched right past his hiding spot.

Greg got up, edged past Jasper, and hurried over.  “Heyy, Barb!  The car wash is closed today, y’know, you can just leave packages by the door…”

“Yeah, but I heard you over here talking to your uhhh,” Barb trailed off, looking at Lapis, then staring Jasper up and down.  “Hey.  Aren’t you that galoot who tried to fastball my little girl into a cliff?”

Jasper studied Barb up and down, scratched her chin, and frowned.  “Lemme see…short?  Sort of yellow-white, had a stick?”

“That’s her.”

“Yeah, I did.”  Jasper bared her teeth at Barb.  “Assuming she grows a couple feet, she’s got the makings of a decent fighter, you know, for a human.”

Barb thumped a fist to her own chest and nodded, grinning.  “I keep _telling_ her!  By the way, you ever touch my baby again and I’ll show you a thing or two I picked up while I was in the Marines.  Lemme tell you, you won’t be walking again for a _long_ time…Greg, quit smacking your face like that, you’re gonna give yourself a nosebleed.”

“Barb,” Greg said weakly, “you’re just here to deliver bills!  Don’t pick a fight with the alien warlord.”

“I’m not delivering bills!  Psht, bills.  Nah, I got something better.  So which one of you two’s Lapis Lazuli and which one’s Jasper?  Oh.  Haha, duh, of course.”  Barb trotted over to the van and handed Lapis up a piece of paper.  “Summons from the mayor’s office in lieu of an arresting officer, asking you to appear in county court on one charge of _grand theft aqua._ Isn’t that a gas?  And this one’s for you,” Barb went on, handing Jasper a considerably larger sheaf of papers.  “Destruction of property, uttering threats, assault, assault causing bodily harm, assault causing bodily harm _and_ destruction of property, assault on a minor, contributing to the…anyway, you get the idea.  Your court date’s in two months, maybe don’t wear the spandex jump suit, it makes you look like a Star Trek bad guy.”  As the two Gems stared uncomprehendingly at their paperwork, Barb turned back to Greg.  “Oh yeah, ‘nother thing!  Mayor Dewey just called a town hall meeting, he wants you and your boy and however many of the magic ladies you can spare to attend.”

Greg raised his eyebrows.  “We don’t have a town hall, though…?”

“Kofi Pizza closed down his restaurant for the afternoon, we’re using that.”

“Oh…Fish Stew Pizza?”

“Yeah, why the long face?”

“It’s just, Kofi’s never exactly been a big _fan_ of the Crystal Gems…not that he’s had any reason to be, let’s be fair, but…Barb, are we looking at torches and pitchforks here?”

“What?  No!  God, no.  Just bring your kid and keep your ears open.  It’s a small town,” Barb added in the face of Greg’s puzzled look.  “Word gets around.”

Steven popped up from behind the brick wall, to the shock of all the human and alien adults present.  “I wanna go to a town hall meeting!  Can we sit on a stage?  Are there door prizes?”

“Oh, good, there you are!” Lapis said.

“Was he _listening_ to us?” Jasper demanded of Greg.

Greg gave Steven a worried look, and got a smile and thumbs-up in return.  “So what if he was?  C’mon little guy, there’s no stage in Fish Stew Pizza but I bet you can score a free curry garlic brioche if Nanafua’s around.”

“Sweet!”  Steven ran up to Greg and Barb, and then looked up at Lapis and Jasper.  “You guys should go back to the Temple, Peridot and Pearl are stuffing magic Gem things into old glowsticks and they need help and maybe it’s good to keep busy if you’re feeling sad, also, there’s a recycling bin full of pop cans under the sink if you want to crush _those_ against your forehead, Jasper, it’s not just okay, it’s actually something they ask you to do in the municipal recycling guide!”  He took Greg’s hand and towed him away, Barb trotting to catch up with them.

Jasper stared after the departing humans.  “They’re stuffing _our_ tech into _what?”_

* * *

 

Steven and Greg did not get to sit on the stage, but Kofi did give them the corner table Steven liked, right by the kitchen, and Nanafua did slip them each a garlic brioche.

It seemed like most of Beach City’s permanent residents were there.  Even Suitcase Sam had turned up, and Mr. Smiley, and Jamie, who waved to Steven before snagging a table with Barb and Sadie.  Lars had grabbed a table with the Cool Kids, Kiki and Nanafua were sitting with the Frymans.  Onion’s family had all made it, even Yellowtail, still wearing his rain slicker.

There was a bit of a delay when Mayor Dewey climbed on the counter with his megaphone to start addressing the assembly, and got yelled at by Kofi for it.

“I’ve got to stand on _something,”_ Mayor Dewey protested, nervously climbing back down again.

“ _Not_ on my counter,” Kofi snapped at him.  “Even _animals_ don’t put their feet on a restaurant counter.  I will get you a box.”

“No need,” said Mayor Dewey imperiously, and tried to stand on a stack of pizza boxes.  There was a slight, cardboard-y creak, followed by a squelching sound.

Jenny Pizza and Buck Dewey exchanged identical pained looks and slowly, slowly covered their eyes.  Sour Cream patted their backs reassuringly.

Mayor Dewey stiffly stepped out of the crushed mess of cardboard and bits of discarded pizza slices, shook some cheese of his shoe, and held up his megaphone, determinedly ignoring Kofi’s unimpressed look.  “Good people of Beach City…”

_“He’s still got a piece of pepperoni stuck to his sock,”_ Nanafua whispered to Kiki, who smothered a giggle.

“No heckling, please, people, this is serious!  We are gathered here today to address a _pressing_ civic issue!”

In the dramatic pause that followed, Ronaldo Fryman could be heard whispering, _“Please be evil robots, please be evil robots…”_

Mayor Dewey scowled, his thunder stolen.  “The issue is evil robots.”

“YES!  Woohoo!”

“Sit _down,_ Ronaldo,” Mr Fryman hissed, trying to get his eldest son to stop punching the air.  Ronaldo obliged, with a wounded look.

“Now, I know we all here have had some…” Mayor Dewey hesitated and squinted at the corner table.  “Yes, Steven?”

Steven kept his hand up.  “I just wanted to say that the robots aren’t programmed to hurt humans and the Crystal Gems have a plan to deal with them so they don’t come anywhere near Beach City and nobody will get hurt that way.”

“We know,”Mayor Dewey said.

Steven lowered his hand.  “You…do?”

“Well, yeah, it was kind of hard to miss the last few days that there’s a lot more of them, and Peridot said right in front of me and Dad that they aren’t really interested in attacking Beach City,”  Pee Dee pointed out.

“My brother-in-law’s entire scrap yard disappeared,” Mr. Smiley said.  “Just walked away!  That was some expensive scrap, lemme tell you.  All that copper and nickel, man, breaks my heart.”

“You and your sisters and their friends walked right by my van after a fight with them!” Mayor Dewey put in.

“Plus, you seem to have made friends kind of quickly with some people who were trying really hard to kill you, Steven,” Sadie added.  “I know you’re easy to be friends with, but, uh, as someone who’s had to deal with Peridot a lot lately?  She’s not the easiest person to get along with, even for you.  There had to be something big going down to keep you guys in each other’s pockets.”  She blushed.  “That said, I guess I maybe owe her an apology, or at least a reverse on her ban once the store opens up again.  She did save my life.”

Barb patted Sadie’s shoulder.  “You can be her character witness when she’s in court for, uh, let’s see here…didn’t get a chance to deliver this one…oh yeah, reckless operation of a vehicle weighing over two tonnes, says here in brackets “Green Hand Space Ship” and a bunch of question marks.”

“Barb!” Mayor Dewey yelped.  “You’re not supposed to _read_ them!”

“Hey, you hand me a bunch of papers with no envelope and orders for a special free delivery, you bet your tailored mayor pants I’m gonna read ‘em, Dewey,” Barb said, to Vidalia’s roar of laughter.

Mayor Dewey turned slightly purple.  “ _As_ I was saying, Steven, Greg, we’re…” He fumbled for an unaccustomed moment.  “…concerned.  I mean, as people _and_ citizens.  Now, to be fair, your uh, sisters, they’re usually at the centre of the weird business that goes on around here…”

“You’re telling me,” Mr. Fryman growled.

“The things they have _done_ to our _shop,”_ Kofi muttered, ignoring the fact that two entire generations of his immediate family were all rolling their eyes at him.  He hesitated, and then added stiffly, “But that is no reason to abandon them in their time of need.  This time, _they_ are in danger, we’re not.  So who’s protecting them?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Fryman agreed grudgingly, “just because you’re not too fond of having your mascot suit get possessed by a magic rock, doesn’t mean it’s okay to just _abandon_ someone!  Never leave a man behind!”

“Yeah!” Barb broke in.  “ _Semper fi,_ baby!”

“They are your family,” Nanafua said to Steven.  “And you’re part of the Beach City family, the crazy weird kind.”

“Exactly!  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  As a result of our town hall, we have a couple of proposals on the table from various parties to support our local Gems, including, let’s see…” Mayor Dewey picked up a sheaf of cue cards and squinted at them.  “Distracting the robots with other robots—thank you, Jamie, that’s a very dapper looking gender-neutral robot—so the Gems can punch them from behind, a…missile?  I’m not quite sure what this is.  A fully functioning set of disguises with wigs, costumes—I’ve got ‘clown’ and ‘aviatrix’ here, okay—and _masks_ to pass as human?  Mm, it’s an interesting contribution but I’m not sure how popular that’ll be…oh, and a surprisingly detailed plan to attack the robots involving a giant transforming mecha and someone with noodle hair and a sword.”

Steven’s eyes had gone wide and starry at the mention of all of these, but then he frowned.  “Those are all _good_ ideas, but I think Pearl and Peridot have one already…but I could _ask_ them!  They might need you guys to help out!  I mean, the Gems will feel a lot betterknowing you’ve got their back.”  He hesitated for a moment.  “I just want to warn you before you decide to help, it’s usually _pretty_ dangerous on these kinds of crazy missions.  Somebody could get hurt.”

“That’s the fun part,” Jenny Pizza said cheerfully, ignoring her father’s incoherent, frustrated noises of protest.

“In fact, Steven, you’re right, someone could get hurt,” Mayor Dewey said, “and as Mayor I need to prepare for every eventuality, up to and including sucking chest wounds.  So I _have_ prepared for sucking chest wounds!  I called up one of Beach County’s foremost hospitals, and their foremost emergency physician was surprisingly eager to come and support our…”

The door to Fish Stew Pizza burst open.

“Why, here she is now, half an hour early!  You must be Dr. Ma…er…you must have driven pretty quickly to get here…”

Mayor Dewey trailed off as Dr. Maheswaran surged into the room, Mr. Maheswaran in her wake.

Steven was starting to look like a very small deer in the headlights of a very large truck by the time Dr. Maheswaran came to a stop in front of him and planted her hands on her hips.  With a visible effort, she controlled herself, although her eyes were red-rimmed, and her voice only cracked a little when she said, “Steven Quartz Universe, I have been calling and calling your cell phone!  Greg, why doesn’t your son have his answering service set up, what on earth is going on here, and _where is my daughter?!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, folks. At six full re-writes and complete trashes, this has been the hardest and most time-consuming chapter in the whole story. I had to go back and edit the end of the previous chapter, I was so dissatisfied with how everything was progressing. The edits aren't big, but they have helped to set the tone of what I'm trying to drive at now that we're getting close to the end of LTBUW.
> 
> For those interested, Greg is playing bits of "What Are You Doing Here" while he's hanging out at the car wash.


	17. Slow Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Maheswarans have a heart-to-heart (with shouting), Beach City mobilizes, and Peridot and Jasper are terrible at road trips. 
> 
> Lapis confronts a lingering issue, Steven tries to keep a brave face on, and a deadly miscalculation is made.

Everybody followed the Maheswarans and the Universes along the beach back to the Temple.  There didn’t seem to be any getting rid of them, and Dr. Maheswaran’s stony silence seemed to be infectious, so the whole parade went along in eerie quiet.

Mayor Dewey brought them all to a halt outside the beach house, and Steven saw Pearl open the door and blink.  “Steven, what are all of these humans— _ahh!_ Don’t just go running in there,” she yelped, sticking an arm out to stop Dr. Maheswaran, who’d charged up the stairs with her husband in her wake.  “We’re performing _delicate,_ time-sensitive magical work…!”

“I don’t care if you’re working on the Harlem Project,” Dr. Maheswaran barked in Pearl’s face, “I want to see my daughter _right this instant!”_

Steven hurried up the stairs after the Maheswarans, and arrived just in time to see Connie, in the middle of a pile of sickly green-lit glowsticks, freeze in terror.  _“Mom?!”_

_“Connie!_ You’re safe!”For a second, Dr. Maheswaran looked as if she were going to burst into tears.  Mr. Maheswaran actually _did_ clutch his chest and start to cry, though he composed himself quickly.  Dr. Maheswaran, however, quickly and visibly steeled herself.  “How could you _do_ this to us?”

“Umm, Dr. Maheswaran, she just stayed the night over here,” Greg began carefully, and then flinched back as both Maheswarans whirled on him.

Dr. Maheswaran jabbed an accusing finger at Greg.  “When I called her this morning, she told me she was _running away from home!_ To her grandmother’s house!  In _Los Alamos!_ She said she was at a bus station somewhere in Western Keystone!”

“She’s been using _our family’s_ e-mail account to write to her tennis instructor that she was sick and her violin teacher that we were out of town on vacation,” Mr. Maheswaran added.  “Her poor violin teacher almost had a breakdown!  She thought Connie must have been running around vandalizing things and doing _drugs_ if she was skipping lessons!”

Dr. Maheswaran spun on Connie, who was shrinking back against the couch, huge-eyed with terror.  “Connie, how could you _do_ this?  I knew you were spending too much time hanging around with Steven and his family, but I _trusted_ you to tell us everything you were doing, and now…now _this?_ We were all the way to Charm City before Mayor Dewey called us!  Your father actually suggested _stealing an ambulance_ so we could run red lights, and let me tell you, I was seriously considering that as an option!”

“Do you know how many cases we had of little girls going missing from bus stops when I was working with the Empire City P.D, Connie?” Mr. Maheswaran demanded furiously.  “ _Do you?_ And that was when their _parents_ were with them!”

“Was that…that _crazy_ story about the veteran with PTSD a lie too, Connie?” Dr. Maheswaran demanded.  “Have you told us _anything at all_ that hasn’t been a lie this last week?!”

Connie slowly covered her mouth with her hands, shaking from head to toe.

Dr. Maheswaran looked away, squeezed her eyes shut, and clenched her fists tightly.  “You’re coming home with us, and we’re going to discuss…this move was a bad idea.  A _very_ bad idea.  My director says there’s an opening for an E.R. specialist up in Vermont…”

“Mom, _no,”_ Connie burst out.

“…and I think I should accept the posting!”

“Dr. Maheswaran,” Steven said pleadingly, and then fell silent under her glare.

“Steven,” Mr. Maheswaran said roughly, “we don’t…blame you, although you can _bet_ I blame your father,” he added, scowling at the stricken-looking Greg.  “But you and Connie are…you’re just too different. You’re…you’re a nice boy, and you mean well, but at the end of the day you’re not a good influence on her.  All of this just made that very clear.”

Pearl, still plastered to the doorframe, said in a very small voice, “Garnet?  Help?”

Garnet straightened up from where she’d been leaning on the counter, watching the proceedings.  “What’s PTSD?”

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Dr. Maheswaran said automatically.

“Oh.”  Garnet looked over her shoulder into the depths of the temple.  “Jasper?”

_“What?”_

“Connie’s parents think she was lying about you.  Yeah, she might’ve lied a little about the other stuff,” Garnet said conversationally, as Jasper stood up and emerged into the light, squeezing through the front door, forcing the Maheswarans and Greg back onto the porch, and looming over the three of them.  “But she didn’t lie about _her_.”

Mr. Maheswaran whipped out a taser and pointed it at Jasper.  “Get the hell away from my wife and daughter, you maniac!”

Faster than the eye could follow, Jasper snatched the taser out of his hand and idly crushed it between her palms.  Then she crouched down and squinted through the window at Connie, gesturing to Dr. Maheswaran.  “Who’s she?  Your C.O.?”

“I’m her _mother,”_ Dr. Maheswaran snapped, ignoring her husband’s frantic whisper of _“Priyanka,_ please, _get behind me!”_

Jasper ignored her.  “What are you so afraid of?”

Connie stared at Jasper.  “What?”

“Why don’t you cut _her_ arm off?  Punch her in the face?  What, lost your nerve?  That’s pretty pathetic!  Where’s the warrior who _fought_ me for the Quartz kid’s life, huh?  I’m embarrassed for you!  I thought you were a fighter, now you’re just some pathetic snivelling little infant who’s afraid of her own guardians…”

_“Oh my_ asteroids _Jasper shut UP,”_ Amethyst hollered from the living room, where she’d attached herself ferociously to Connie.  _“You make_ everything _worse!”_

In the ringing silence that followed, Greg could be heard muttering “Ohhh boy,” and Peridot said, too loudly, “Are you going to mention when she shoved her gross human finger in my eye and kicked me?  Because she did that too.”

“You _were_ trying to take her hostage,” Garnet said flatly.

“…okay, fine, I’ll allow that.”

The Maheswarans seemed to digest this, Dr. Maheswaran slightly faster than her husband.  Finally, in a tremulous voice, she said, “Connie?  Are you…is she right?  You’re afraid of us…?”

Connie stood up with Amethyst still attached.  “Mom, I am _not_ going to Vermont!  I’m not going _anywhere!_ There are evil intelligent robots trying to _murder_ Steven, and he and the Gems _need my help._ And yes,” she added, tears streaming down her face, “I’ve been lying to you, a _lot,_ because the me you want me to be?  The daughter you think you have, who goes to every violin lesson and tennis practice and math tutoring session and does all her homework and never gets into any trouble?  She doesn’t _exist!_ ”  She started to sob.  Amethyst, still awkwardly attached to her, tried to mop Connie’s eyes with the hem of her shirt, then gave up and let go to try to wring it out.  “You don’t even know who I am, because it…you wouldn’t _love_ me if you knew who I really was, and you definitely wouldn’t let me _be_ me!”

Dr. Maheswaran opened her mouth, then her husband laid his hand on her shoulder.  “Doug?”

“Connie,” Mr. Maheswaran said, clearly scrambling for some kind of mental purchase, “you’re…you’ve lost the lenses of your glasses, when did they fall out…?”

_“I threw them out,”_ Connie blurted out, _“ten months ago, and neither of you even noticed!”_

Steven finally managed to squeeze past the massive jam of adult humans and Gems crowding the porch and hurry to Connie’s side.  “Connie!  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, it’s all my fault…”

_“No,_ no, Steven, it isn’t your fault, it’s me…”

Lapis suddenly came up from behind them and put her arms around both of their shoulders.  “Connie, Steven, it’s okay.  Nobody is going to make Connie go anywhere she doesn’t want to,” she added, her voice flat with menace as she stared at Dr. Maheswaran.  _“Nobody.”_

In the electrified quiet that followed, Greg cleared his throat.  “So, um, we may have been in the process of reforming a few Gem bad guys lately.  They’re still dealing with new ideas like, uh, parent-child relationships, not stealing, unacceptable violence…hostage-taking…”

“Greg,” Dr. Maheswaran said slowly, “I’m starting to think this isn’t…your fault, either.”  She never took her eyes off Lapis.  “Steven, will you and your new…mother…person…let Doug and I talk to Connie?  Alone.  Please.”

“Don’t let her, Steven,” Lapis said harshly.  “It’s a trick.”

“Like she can do anything if it is,” Jasper drawled.  “The brat’s armed.”

The Maheswarans levelled an appalled look at Connie, then at Pearl, who nervously scuffed her foot on the floor.  “I, ahem, I _have_ been giving Connie lessons in— _very safe—_ sword-handling, fencing, and fighting techniques.  It’s excellent for mental _and_ physical condition and self-protection, which I gather has been the objective of most of the frankly rather inane and unnecessary extracurricular activities you’ve enrolled her in, and unlike human instructors, I do not charge for my…services…” She started to wilt under the force of their combined glare.

“I actually like violin and tennis lessons,” Connie said in a small voice.  “But I like sword training best.”

“To…fight… _what?”_ Dr. Maheswaran gritted out, gesturing sharply at Jasper.  “Gigantic troubled magical ex-soldiers?”

“What’s this _ex_ schist?” Jasper growled at her.

“Don’t you dare use _language_ in front of my daughter!”

“What am I _supposed_ to do?  Grunt and point?”

“Mom, it’s not just Jasper,” Connie broke in, and then sighed and took Steven’s hand.  “Look.  Guys.  I…I think I need to talk to Mom and Dad alone.  They’re not going to wrap me up in a blanket and spirit me away in the night,” she added quickly to Lapis, who looked dubious.  “They’re not monsters!”

“She’s right,” Steven said sadly.  “They’re very…very…very responsible parents.”

Peridot jumped down from the loft with an armload of glow sticks and dumped them in the pile, burying Connie to the knees.  “Well, we’re done with all these, so you can have the house.”  She gave the Maheswarans a cursory glance.  “Wow, I never realized all your gross birthing-induced biology-based relationships were so conducive to _drama._ Anyways, I have great news and lousy news,” she added to Garnet.  “The great news is, these work exactly as expected on Gem-powered technology.  I tested it on your washing machine, which exploded.”

“Wonderful,” Garnet said flatly.

“The bad news is, it takes about two hundred detonators to get the reaction we’re going to need off the warp pad, and planting those over four kilometers of weird human terrain is going to take _time._ ”

Garnet studied her palms intently, then looked at Peridot.  “How much time?”

“Well, _we_ can’t plant them, it’ll take the Gem Busters off course and they’ll be trying to destroy whoever’s planting the charges.  It has to be your Greg human, if Steven goes with him, he’ll attract them and they’ll follow the van and probably destroy it.  Whether or not the Connie human’s progenitors incinerate her for disobedience, even with both of them riding around in his van it’ll take them at least half an hour to plant all those charges.”

Garnet’s expression changed.  “We can’t hold _all_ the Gem Busters off for that long!”

“I _know!_ I’ve been trying to think of a solution, but…”

Pearl, who’d been having a hasty whispered conversation with Greg in the doorway, broke away and hurried up to Garnet and Peridot.  “Greg thinks we may have one.  You have to see what’s going on outside!”

The Gems all filed out of the beach house, Amethyst making the _I’m watching you_ gesture at Connie’s parents with her fingers, Lapis simply glaring at them.  Steven was the last to go, and he stopped in front of them.  “Mr. and Dr. Maheswaran, _please,_ don’t blame Connie for all this!  She was only trying to help me, and I just sort of attract weird stuff like a pink magnet!”

“Steven, we…look, Steven…we’ll talk about this after we’ve talked to Connie,” Dr. Maheswaran said, and then hesitated.  “Did that green person with the strange hair just say we were going to _incinerate Connie?”_

“Peridot gets confused sometimes,” Steven said.  “She’s only been on earth a couple of months, and she just discovered coffee about four days ago, and she’s trying really hard not to be evil anymore.”

“I…okay, Steven, thank you for telling us.”  Dr. Maheswaran made an awkward shooing motion.

Steven slumped and headed down the stairs.  He heard the door open, and Dr. Maheswaran say, in a very small voice, “Connie?  Honey, let’s…can we start with your glasses?  What _happened_ to your glasses?”

* * *

 

"You’re serious,” Garnet said to Mayor Dewey.

“Yes, very!  You all look a little confused, I understand that, but…”

“This has never happened before,” Garnet said.  “Ever.”

“Well, there was that one time in…well…except… _they_ were coming to set Rose on fire…that’s the last time _we_ ever set up a base in a large human city, I can tell you…”  Pearl scanned the crowd suspiciously.  “So far, nobody seems to be saying anything about burning the witch…”

“Seriously, Pearl,” Vidalia said, “we’d like to give you a hand, assuming you want it.”

“It _would_ solve our time problem, assuming some of them have access to those hilarious ‘car’ things,” Peridot observed to Pearl and Garnet.  “There’s enough of them.”

“Oh boy,” said Garnet quietly.

“You don’t think it’ll work?” Pearl fidgeted with her sash.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to stop them.”  Garnet raised her voice.  “People of Beach City!”

This caused a wave of silence to wash over the crowd of humans assembled before the beach house.  None of them had ever heard Garnet raise her voice before, and Steven watched, hanging on tightly to Greg’s hand, as every human present unconsciously turned towards her and just…waited.

“I—we, the Crystal Gems, and auxiliaries…”

_“Temporary expedient military allies,”_ Jasper hissed at her.

“…I mean, jerks who are only working with us to avoid getting killed, or so they can smash some robots,” Garnet corrected with barely a hitch, “we’re grateful.  This is a really unexpected gesture.  _I_ didn’t see it coming.”

“Speech!”  Jamie called from the back.

“No, no speech.  I’m sorry, but we can’t bring you into this.  If you try and get involved in Gem business, one or more of you is very likely to get killed.”  Garnet glanced over at Steven.  “That’s not an acceptable price to pay for victory.”

Barb Miller loudly cleared her throat and crossed her arms.  “Hate to break it to ya, honey, but we’re _already_ involved in Gem business.  We live _here,_ don’t we?”  There were murmurs of agreement.

“Yeah, and besides that, you think we ain’t figured that out?”  Mr. Fryman demanded.  “What do you expect us to do, charge the robots with our cars and ram them?”

“No,” Peridot said flatly, holding up a glow stick.  “Just drive around a designated parameter area and try and plant one of these every,” she paused for a split second, “ _roughly_ every 62.83185307179586 meters.  I put a spike on them,” she added helpfully, “so you know which end to put in the ground.”

Mr. Fryman squinted at her.  “What, is that it?”

Nanafua burst out laughing.  “Oh, you had us going there!  For a moment I thought you were going to ask us for something _hard!”_

“You heard her, good people of Beach City,” Mayor Dewey called out to the assembled boardies.  “Everyone get your vehicles, fully licensed drivers _only,_ business-owned vehicles included, passengers are completely acceptable, even encouraged!  If we can be back here in,” he glanced at his watch, “half an hour, we’ll all make our way up to…”  He hesitated and leaned over to Garnet.  “Where are we going again?”

“The Kindergarten,” Amethyst said firmly from over Peridot’s shoulder.

Peridot swivelled to stare at her.  “What makes _you_ so sure?”

“’Cause it’s the closest warp to us that’s not _our_ warp or destroyed, I got a feeling in my Gem about it,” Amethyst pointed, “and you left your little finger-screen running and I can see that’s where most of the Gem Buster network load is goin’ right now.  Take _that,_ Certainsecure Domicile.”

Garnet nodded. “It’s a few hours’ drive if we take the highway.”

Mayor Dewey’s smile became fixed.  “The, er, desolate wasteland?  Oh.  Yes.  That’s where we’ll make our way up to.  Yes.”

“Figures,” Lars muttered.  “That dump looks like a horror movie.”

Sadie glanced at him sidelong.  “So, you’re not coming then?”

“What?  The heck I’m not!  When did I say I wasn’t coming?  I’m _totally_ coming!”

Mayor Dewey managed to steady himself, although he had to mop his forehead with his tie.  “Alright, yes, so we’re heading to the, ahem, Kindergarten area, where we’ll…we’ll organize this once you all get back with your cars, okay, people?”  He promptly set his megaphone down and went to accost Greg, having a whispered, slightly hysterical argument with him.

Steven let go of his dad’s hand, went over to the Gems, and said, “So, the seven of us are going to go to where the warp pad and the AI is, and that’ll bring all the Gem Busters there to try to kill us.”  He looked up into Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl’s horrified faces, and squinted.  “Or did you guys have another, _different_ plan that you were trying really hard not to tell me about?”

“Nope, that’s the one,” Peridot said, absently dismissing her finger-screen.  “It’s not my favourite, but we’ve run every other possible scenario and it all comes down to half of this loser team getting smashed to dust…”

Amethyst turned into a raccoon and hissed warningly at Peridot.  “ _Geez,_ you and that flappy _mouth!”_

“The ‘loser’ thing?”

“The _smashing to dust_ thing!”

Garnet hunkered down to Steven’s eye level with a sigh.  “Steven, we _have_ to bring you with us, there’s no other choice.  We’re not up against good odds.  They’ve seen all our tricks, even Jasper’s.  They know about Sugilite, Sardonyx, and Opal; we’ll try with them, but they might have already prepared specifically to fight our fusions.” She glanced quickly at Lapis. “Malachite is benched. The only fusion we’ve got left in our pocket is Alexandrite, and even she may not be strong enough to hold them off for as long as we’ll need.  We have to make sure you’re protected in this.”

“Yes, Stevonnie’s actually going to be a big help,” Pearl said, “that is, assuming the Maheswarans don’t, er, ground Connie from ever seeing you again…”

“But who’s gonna protect you guys?” Steven demanded.

Jasper snorted.  “You’ve got to be kidding.  Even _these_ Gems should have enough martial training to handle holding a position.”  The fading daylight glinted briefly off her teeth.  “And you _know_ what I’m capable of.”

Steven whirled on her and jabbed a finger up at her.  “Yeah, I do, but guess what?  You’re _still_ an auxiliary Crystal Gem, and _that_ means _you_ get the Steven Shielding Benefits Package!”  He pointed at Peridot.  “So do you!  And you too, Lapis, but you knew that.”

Lapis managed a small smile.  “I did.”

Garnet offered Steven her hand.  “We’ve only got half an hour.  Let’s work out a strategy.”

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, as Garnet and Pearl drew in the sand, Jasper shoved rocks and conch shells in and growled about proper use of an offensive line, Steven and Greg ran back and forth from the carwash carrying boxes into the van, and various people stole Peridot’s fingers to make their points with (to her increasing frustration), the Maheswarans emerged from the beach house. 

 Connie was standing between her parents, looking worn and determined.  Steven almost ran straight into her in his hurry to join her, but brought himself to a quick halt in front of her family.  “So…um…so?  Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran…?”

“I’m taking Connie back,” Dr. Maheswaran began, and was cut off by Steven’s despairing wail of “NOOOOOOO!”

Connie lurched forward and grabbed his shoulders.  “Steven, Steven, don’t cry, _listen!”_

“I was _trying_ to say I’m taking Connie and Doug back to the hospital, where we’ll be picking up one of the ambulances and meeting all of you at that horrible waffle shack off Exit 9,” Dr. Maheswaran said sternly.  “You need _somebody_ who knows how to deal with emergencies beyond “just shoot it”, and Doug and I happen to be professionals.”

“And you’re bringing Connie back, too, with the ambulance?”

“I…yes.  Steven,” Dr. Maheswaran began, “we were…we’ve been talking, and we realized that we’ve been too hard on Connie.  We thought it was for her own good, but, well…”

“They’re more worried about me getting hurt because I didn’t tell them what’s going on in my life than, you know, magic and robots and Gem stuff and swordfighting,” Connie said, and added, with an awkward chuckle, “I’m still really grounded.  _After_ we help with the robot thing.”

“We _are_ still going to have a talk about you _cutting someone’s arm off,”_ Dr. Maheswaran said sternly.  “And the next time you absolutely _have_ to get in a fight with a pack of evil robots, you don’t take a taxi, you _call me or your father,_ we’ll drive you and bring an EMT, it’s what they’re for.  And no doing that kind of thing on weeknights.”

“Yes, Mom,” Connie said meekly, but shared a quick wink with Steven when her mother wasn’t looking.

Jasper snapped her helmet into place and head-butted a boulder to shards, then straightened up and grinned at the Maheswarans.  “No hard feelings about the arm.  I’ve had worse.”  She jerked her thumb at Pearl.  “ _She_ cut my head off.”

“I’m not even slightly sorry,” Pearl said.

Mr. Maheswaran rubbed his face with his hand.  “Oh, god, it’s been too long a day for this.  Priyanka, how are you going to get an ambulance signed out?  It’s past five o’clock, that means Louise is on shift.”

Dr. Maheswaran’s expression of dangerous determination suddenly echoed her daughter’s.  “ _Louise_ is _going_ to sign that ambulance out for me if she wants Dr. Stromburg to stay in the dark about her persistent and totally shameless theft of his bag lunches!”

“Oooh, _Mom,_ that’s hardcore stuff!”  Connie inched away from her parents to Steven and whispered out of the side of her mouth, “I told them about everything but Stevonnie, I don’t think they’d take that well.  Let’s…ease them into Stevonnie, okay?”

“Good call,” Steven breathed back, and then straightened up.  “I’m really really _really_ glad you guys don’t want to move away and take Connie with you, Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran.”  For a moment, his face crumpled.  “She’s my best friend, and I love her.”

Dr. Maheswaran blinked.  “Oh, _really?”_

“Now wait just a minute,” Mr. Maheswaran began, glaring at Steven.

_“Not in a dating way,”_ Steven and Connie immediately chorused, then looked at each other and giggled.

Dr. Maheswaran clapped her hands together.  “Alright, no more distractions, hospital.  We’ll see you shortly,” she added to the Crystal Gems, and to Greg, “I’m sorry for doubting you, after talking with Connie I’m fairly certain you’ve got no control over all this alien business, and I’m sure you’re doing the best you can to raise Steven to be an…upstanding young man.”

Greg blushed.  “Well, that is…I mean I _try…_ ”

“So I’d appreciate it if you would find a copy of Ms. Pearl’s certification as a fencing instructor so I can keep it for our family records and insurance purposes,” Dr. Maheswaran finished.

“My _what,”_ Pearl said blankly, as Connie waved to the Gems and hurried after her disappearing parents.

Steven waved after her, and then slowly fell over backwards into the sand.  “Phew!”

Amethyst sat down next to him.  “Sorry if all this junk about a siege-type battle is confusing and scary, little guy.  This must be pretty stressful.”

“Are you kidding?” Steven sat up and grabbed Amethyst into a sandy hug.  “This is _great!_ You’ll all be there, Lapis and Peridot are sticking around, Jasper’s gonna be a good guy for the day, and Dad and _Connie_ are coming!  This mission is going to be amazing!”

Amethyst sighed and hugged Steven back.  “Never change, Steve-o.”  She gave Pearl and Garnet a helpless look, and they immediately came to join the Steven hug.

Greg sniffed.  “Well, that’s, that’s a big weight off my shoulders.” He nudged Lapis.  “How ‘bout you, still feeling blue?”

“Greg,” Lapis said, rolling her eyes.  Then, more seriously, “I’m glad Steven’s happy.  Now we have to make sure he—along with the rest of you—stays alive.”

“Wow, we’ve come a long way since that last time…hey, you know what, that reminds me, I drew a picture of you!”

“A _picture?”_

It took a few minutes for Greg to dig out his sketchbook from the van and show Lapis the rough cover for “Water Witch”.  She stared at in silence for a few seconds, Peridot peeking over her shoulder, and suddenly grinned.  “I _love_ it!”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I look incredibly menacing, it’s _great!”_

Peridot gave Greg something dangerously close to sad puppy eyes.  “How come _I_ didn’t get a scary portrait?”

“You didn’t throw my van and break my leg,” Greg said cheerfully.  “And make a giant tower of stolen ocean water.  I mean, if you want one, I could probably…”  He cocked his head.  “Oh, hey, hear that?”

“I hear engines.”

“Exactly.  Team Beach City, on its way!”  He looked over at Garnet.  “So, uh, what do you want to do with ‘em?”

* * *

 

“Run that by us again, if you would,” Mayor Dewey said to Garnet, Lapis, and Jasper.  He paused and leaned in to add, conspiratorially, “And ladies?  Could you stand to use smaller words for the electorate?  Can you maybe throw a little more “freedom” and “justice” in there?”

“Nope,” Lapis said, “I’m going to go high and do surveillance, see if anything else is coming this way.”  She spread her wings and shot skyward.

Jasper stared at Mayor Dewey as if he was something unpleasant she’d found on the bottom of her boot, and then turned to Garnet.  “Can I just crush his sweaty little head?”

“No, you can't, and I will fight you if you try,” Garnet said over the Mayor’s strangled noise.  The two taller Gems turned back to the knot of boardies and their ragtag assortment of cars.  Mail trucks, pickups, sedans, the mayoral campaign van, and the Pizza jeep littered the beach; their owners were preoccupied with packing assorted wrapped items into their trunks and back seats.  Garnet cleared her throat, and they all stopped and stared at her.  For a moment, she looked less stoic and more awkward than Steven had ever seen her.

Beside her, Mayor Dewey sighed.  “Wow, I wish _I_ could do that.  I wouldn’t have to invest in megaphones… _hey!”_

Amethyst snatched his out of his hand and pressed it into Garnet’s.  “You’re on, G-squad, go kill it!”

Garnet responded with a tiny smile, which vanished as she raised the megaphone to her lips.  _“Right, everybody listen up.  We’re looking at seven disruptor-planting cars, eight when the Maheswarans arrive…”_

“Speak, o Muse of Fire!” someone called cheerfully from the back.

_“Not now, Jamie.  Steven and Pearl are going around with boxes for you all, one box for each car.  As for the disruptors, do not play with them, do not eat them, and try not to lose too many of them.  Plant them spike side down every…”_ She glanced at Peridot.

“Roughly every 62.83185307179586 meters,” Peridot said tiredly.  She’d given up trying to hide from Jasper and simply lay on a rock like an irritable green starfish, looking unimpressed with life.

_“What she said.  We’ll give you out coordinates once we get there, everybody’s responsible for a section.  Try not to leave any big gaps.  Mail woman…”_

“That’s Barb Miller,” Steven whispered helpfully as he and Pearl loaded up on boxes.

_“…Mail woman Barb Miller has provided you all with talkie-walkies, or whatever, they’re going to be essential once we get in range of the AI, since satellite based reception is probably going to be really slagged up.  We’ll be going ahead in Greg’s van…”_

This generated a round of applause for Greg, and whoops and catcalls from Vidalia and Nanafua, which Greg took in stride except for turning bright red.  “Well, it’s no big deal, I’m just giving the Gems a lift so they don’t have to take a taxi to the Kindergarten.  I’ll be joining you guys planting those disruptors pretty soon after!”

_“…and that’s pretty much it.  Wait, one more thing: if you see a Gem Buster and it’s heading for you, or trying to scan you, don’t try to run.  Turn off your vehicle, exit it, and get to cover.  They’ll lose interest quickly enough, especially if we do our job right.”_ Garnet studied the megaphone for a moment, and then handed it back to Mayor Dewey, who clutched it protectively.  “Yeah, I can see why you like that thing.  Makes anything you say sound impressive.”

“Oh, you _always_ sound impressive, Garnet,” Pearl said, pressing a box of disruptors into Mr. Fryman’s hands.  “Now, every 62.83185307179586 meters, remember?”

“About every sixty-three meters, got it,” Mr. Fryman agreed.

Pearl made a face.  “If you want to be _relaxed_ about it, I suppose you could round to the third or fourth decimal place…”

“No, it _has_ to be every 62.83185307179586 meters,” Peridot snapped from her rock.  “Do humans not understand these things?  Is that too many _numbers_ for your small squishy brain?!”

“One, that’s rude, and two, hey, Sadie, Lars, I think you kids might’ve been serving this gal too much coffee,” Mr. Fryman said.

“True, she does look a little _green around the gills_ ,” Smiley put in, and the two men roared with laughter while Pearl rolled her eyes back into her head and moved on.

Amethyst patted Peridot’s hair, none too gently, and went over to take the box from Pearl.  “Hey, I got this, lemme serve up disruptors to the laugh riot, you go talk nerdy to Peridork.”

Pearl ceded the box, then paused to squeeze Amethyst’s shoulders tightly.  “You’re being incredibly helpful, Amethyst.”

Amethyst shrugged and twirled a lock of hair around her finger.  “Hey, thanks, just doing what I can.  I got other talents than punching people in the face.”

“ _We_ know tha…” Pearl began, and then stopped and very pointedly did not look at Jasper.  “Of course.  By the way, would you please, _please_ tell Vidalia she can’t bring her shotgun?”

“I’ll _tell_ her, but I dunno if she’s gonna get told,” Amethyst said, grinning suddenly, and smacked Pearl’s hip in passing before plunging into the crowd.

Pearl joined Garnet, who was watching Steven make his way slowly from car to pickup truck, getting stopped every time with words of encouragement or advice.  Even Suitcase Sam offered him a thermos, which he politely declined.  “I’m…feeling a little better about this.”

“Don’t get too smug, oyster waste,” Jasper said.  “We haven’t even _seen_ what your “queen” AI looks like.”

“ _I mean_ about involving the humans,” Pearl snapped, before deliberately turning her back on Jasper to address Garnet more quietly.  “They seem to really care about Steven’s wellbeing.”

“Yeah.  They do.  It’s encouraging.”  Garnet shook herself and raised her voice.  “That’s our plan!  Any questions?  Yes, food boy with the saggy orange pants?”

“Sour Cream,” Sour Cream said, a little reproachfully.  “Uh, just, how come _we’re_ in two cars but we don’t get any disruptor-thingies?”

Steven, fresh out of boxes, wandered over to the two cars parked a little too close to the tideline.  One was a bright pink monstrosity with fins and mirror dice, the other a sensible blue sedan with the vanity plate ‘BARB M’.  Beach City’s entire under-20 permanent population, including Onion and Pee Dee, had gathered around the two spare cars.

“We discussed this,” Nanafua said, climbing into the front seat of the Pizza jeep armed with a field hockey stick.  “You all refused to go home, so you are only on scouting duty, and you get the special privilege of using my beautiful antique car from the days when _I_ used to party hard.”

“She’s right,” Garnet said.  “You’re riding ahead with us and Greg as far as Picture Point, and you’ll park there and relay Gem Buster movements to the functional adults while we continue on to the Kindergarten.  It’s a nice spot, you’ll have a clear view for almost 360 degrees, and it keeps you out of the Gem Busters’ path.  Understood, Pizza sisters?”

Kiki nodded, but Jenny put her hands on her hips.  “I still don’t get why Kiki gets to drive Barb’s car!”

Sadie cleared her throat.  “So, when we divided people up into the Responsible Car and the Cool Car, out of the people in the Responsible Car who can drive, Ronaldo forgot to get his license renewed and my feet can’t reach the pedals.  So that leaves Kiki.”

Jenny turned very pink.  “Oh—girl, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I wasn’t saying anything about _that._ The suspension on Gunga’s classic ride is just kinda messed up!  It’s terrible for off-roading.”

“Luckily, you will not be going off _any_ roads, _at all,”_ Kofi barked at her, hopping into the jeep and revving his engines.  “Let’s go already before I change my mind.”

Garnet adjusted her visor and sighed.  “I’m still not entirely comfortable that those two children are going with you.”

“Okay, Onion threatened me with a _bat_ when I tried to give him back to his mom,” Lars complained, “and Pee Dee basically needs to make sure Ronaldo doesn’t accidentally stab himself in the face with that Pretty Girlfriendzone Devil sword he wasn’t supposed to bring along…”

_“Beautiful Girlfriend Satan, Lars, geez, get it right!”_

“Dude, it’s just how Onion expresses himself,” Sour Cream said to Lars, a little testily.  “You gonna get in the Cool Car with me and Buck or what?”

“Uh…haha, sure.  Shotgun?”

“Nah, we’ll arm-wrestle for that once we pass the Waffle Shack,” Buck said, climbing in.  “It’s a position of great responsibility.”

“I still feel like this is “grownups” getting us out of the way,” Pee Dee muttered.

“You’re not getting out of the _way,”_ Pearl protested.  “You are very significantly and prominently _in_ the way!”

Pee Dee glanced up at her and uncurled somewhat.  “Oh.  That’s…okay.  That’s good.  That’s where we want to be.  In the way.  Helping.”

Steven took a deep breath and spread his arms theatrically, then gave up on trying to maintain the image and started jumping up and down.  “This is gonna be like the best road trip with everybody I like!  You guys!”  Pee Dee tried to get him to stop jumping with a hand on his shoulder, and nearly lost his footing; Steven had to catch him.  “Whoops, sorry.  I mean, yeah, this is super serious and not really a fun thing, but I’m just glad you’re all coming.  Is that okay?”

Onion climbed out of the backseat of Barb’s car, beckoned Steven over, and then ceremoniously patted his head.

“Aww, Onion.”  Steven’s face softened, and then changed when he reached up and patted around his own head.  “…did you just put a mouse in my hair?”

Onion nodded.

“…I thiiink he’d be safer with you.”  Steven returned the mouse, which seemed to satisfy Onion, and headed back for the Gems, where he had a quiet attack of the heebie-jeebies in Garnet’s safely ensconcing shadow.

Amethyst was chewing idly on her empty cardboard box next to Pearl.  “You wanna know how many of these guys brought weapons even though you told ‘em not to?  Man, it’s _unreal._ You okay, little guy?”

“Yeah, I just…haha little paws in my hair, nope, I’m good, I’m good!”

_“Onion,”_ Amethyst bellowed, and got a casual wave from Barb’s car window in response.

“So was it sixty-four meters or sixty-three,” Vidalia called over to Kofi, who sighed theatrically and held up three fingers.  “Thanks, Pizza!”

“It is _every 62.83185307179586 meters,”_ Peridot screeched suddenly, practically levitating from her rock and startling everyone, “can you not get this _one thing right?”_

In the worried silence that followed, Lars said, very carefully, “Uh, Peridot?  Can you…maybe…chill out just a little,and this is _me_ saying it?”

_“No,_ you skinny sack of misfiring hormones,I cannot “chill out” because you are playing _fast and loose_ with my _meticulous FUH-REAKING calculations_ and if you…if I… _gnnngh literally everything else I have done since coming to this planet has resulted in COMPLETE and TOTAL disaster,_ can you please just do what I tell you to ensure that _this one thing_ will not result in _yet another_ catastrophe of unimaginably epic proportions?!”  Peridot ground to a halt, breathing heavily and greener than usual.  The Crystal Gems stared at her in open concern.

Sadie exchanged a Look with Steven and went over to Peridot, tugging her down from the rock.  “We didn’t know you were having such a rough time.  Look, it’ll all turn out okay, so maybe take a deep breath and count to three…”

“I don’t breathe,” Peridot said sulkily, but she was already starting to droop.

Kiki patted her hair sympathetically.  “Poor kid.  You are _super_ stressed out.  You want some ginger candies?  I got some in my apron pocket, I think.”

Jasper’s eyebrow appeared to be rising towards her hairline of its own accord, as she took in Sadie and Kiki towing Peridot to the Responsible Car and propping her gently against the hood, while from the back seat Ronaldo tried to climb over Onion to offer a bottle of Croco-Aide and got kicked in the knee for his troubles.  She looked sidelong at Garnet and Pearl.  “You know what _really_ worries me right now?  Their species didn’t used to be in the habit of coddling the weak, and they were useless enough the first time around.”

Pearl stiffened and tried to look down her nose at Jasper.  When that failed, she settled for looking _up_ her nose at her.  “Perhaps it’s time for you to revisit your definition of “weak” and “useless”, then.”

“In battle, they’re pretty universal constants.”

“And you are _such_ a…!”

“And just who are _you_ calling useless,” Peridot broke in, shaking off Kiki’s attempts at getting her to breathe into a paper sack and bristling like an enraged green porcupine made of triangles.  “ _You’re_ the one who got us into this mess in the first place, _Jasper_!  You dumped the entire mission protocol, ignored _my_ superior’s orders, insisted on taking the clods captive, went for a _three-month ocean tour_ with Lapis _Lazuli_ as your fusion pal, and then tried to murder me!  I had to be rescued by _human teenagers._ Yes, I am a perpetual and _impressive_ screw-up, but you, you are officially the _worst escort ever!”_

Jasper turned on Peridot menacingly.  “You wanna go?”

“And of _course_ you resort to violence because your tiny brain can’t handle…”

_“Right here, right now?”_

_“Fine,_ you irritating variegated coal lump, _I’m_ the one with the energy cannon, I… _Sadie, get **off** me!”  _Peridot unbalanced and fell flat on her face when Sadie tackled her from behind with a yell of _“I am doing this for your own good, young lady!”_

“That’s m’girl!” Barb hollered proudly from the mail truck as Jamie, horrified, tried to unbuckle himself to go intervene.

Jasper started forward, then looked down at Steven, who had stomped around the Gems and planted himself in front of her.  “Get out of my way.”

Steven crossed his arms and stuck his chin out.  “Nope.  We’re not doing this, not here, not now.  We are going to have a _nice_ road trip, with CDs from that one smooth guitar guy with the beard that Dad likes so Garnet doesn’t jump out of the van, and no fighting.”  Jasper tried to walk around him, and he hurried to get in her way again, arms out.  “I am super serious, Jasper!”

Jasper’s snarl grew more pronounced.  “Just because everything I’ve done in the name of the Homeworld has been reduced to a _garbage_ game of let’s-see-how-far-the-defective-lab-animal-can-go _, Steven_ , don’t think I’ll just stand here and take insults from a jumped-up half-pint who’s more robonoid than Gem…” She looked over Steven’s shoulder suddenly.  “Oh, for…not _you,_ too.  _Move,_ Greg.”

Steven glanced up to find his dad standing behind him, arms crossed.  “Yup, me too.  I know you’re angry, you’ve got every right to be, but we’ll talk about this _after_ we’ve got those Gem Busters handled, and you’re not gonna take it out on Peridot.  Heck, I’ve got an old punching bag in the carwash somewhere, I could hang it up and you could…well, you’d probably punch it into the ocean in one go, but it’d be cathartic,” Greg allowed, and then looked sideways at Pearl, who’d moved to stand by Steven’s other shoulder.  “Oh, hey, Pearl, didn’t see you there.”

“It’s alright, Greg, I can handle this,” Pearl said, still staring at Jasper.  “Rose would have expected better of you.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, _Rose is dead,”_ Jasper spat at Pearl.  Steven flinched.

For a moment, Pearl looked like she’d been punched, then she steeled herself visibly.  “For all intents and purposes, you’re right, she _is_ dead.”  Her voice shook, then steadied.  “But _Steven_ is _here,_ and _he_ expects better of you.”  She paused, like a fencer looking for an opening, and then said, “If you feel you can’t rise to meet him, well, I understand.  Most Gems would struggle with it.  _I_ certainly do.”

For a split second, from the tightening of his dad’s fingers on his shoulder and his own instinct, Steven was certain Jasper was going to take a swipe at Pearl, and a tiny part of him readied his shield, but then Jasper lowered her shoulders and turned away.  “Forget it.  Who cares about that green moron, anyway?”

Garnet joined Pearl and patted her shoulder, then looked at Greg.  “I appreciate what you were trying to do.  Steven, we’re going to have to work out alternate riding arrangements if Jasper and Peridot are in the moods they’re in.  If we put them in the back of the van they’ll just fight the whole way, and there’s not very much room left in there in any case.”

“It’d be funny,” Amethyst pointed out, swallowing the last piece of cardboard, “but eventually it’d just get kinda sad and crappy for morale.  And I don’t want Peridot’s hair in my mouth for two hours.”

Pearl listed sideways into both Garnet and Amethyst.  “I don’t think I could take the strain.  I don’t suppose we could shove them into a giant t-shirt and then have Steven bubble them?”

“Uh, excuse me?”

The Crystal Gems, Greg, and Steven looked up at Jenny Pizza, who’d approached them with a gleam in her eye.  Steven smoothed his expression and gave her a tiny bow.  “Yes, Madame Jenny?”

“Oh, stop, you are so _cute._ I hear you got a mean orange machine needs a ride?”

“Why is she smiling like that?” Lars demanded of Buck and Sour Cream, who just nudged each other and grinned.

“We do,” Garnet said.

“I got a spare seat in my open-top.  _Hey, Gunga,”_ Jenny called over her shoulder, “ _you think your old pink rig can handle about three hundred pounds of giant soldier lady?”_

_“No problem!  Let me just go get you a spare hockey stick!”_

Jenny jabbed a thumb at herself, grinning.  “I got your ride right here.”

“You’re serious about this?”

“As a heart attack!  I never rode with an actual honest-to-god supervillain before!  It’ll be something to tell my grandkids…and my Pinstagram followers, them too.”

“There’s room in the backseat of my mom’s car, we’ll take Peridot,” Sadie called from where she was sitting on Peridot’s back.  Onion had emerged from Barb’s car and was methodically and gently poking potato chips into Peridot’s angular hair.

Garnet considered this.  “It’s your funeral.  You can unload them back on us once we get to Picture Point.”

Pearl smiled nervously at her.  “It’s a very, ah, useful offer!  What could go wrong?  Garnet?”

Garnet made an extremely noncommittal noise.

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, the Crystal Gems, Steven included, were loaded into Greg’s van among a pile of boxes and making their way up the hill out of town at the head of a caravan of vehicles.  Once out of the public view and buckled into the front seat, most of Steven’s enthusiasm disappeared and he sat with his cheek squished against the glass, staring out at the gathering stars.

Greg, driving hunched over the wheel and scanning the horizon, spared his son a glance and then another, more worried one.  “Oh, kiddo, you’re not as okay as you were acting, are you.”

“I just didn’t want them to get scared.  Dad, I don’t know if this is even going to work, and what if somebody gets really hurt?” Steven bonked his forehead against the empty air bag slot over the glove compartment.  “How come I never think about this stuff until it’s too late?”

“Steven, we’ve done everything we can,” Garnet said gently.  This was something of a feat, given the configurations she, Pearl, and Amethyst had had to squash themselves into to fit into the back of the van along with its mystery cargo.  “Now we just have to trust everybody will do the best they can.  Ow.”

“Sorry!”  Pearl shifted a little.  “Oh, dear, I’m all knees and elbows…I hope I’m not poking the two of you too badly.”

“I dunno, I’m pretty comfy riiiight here…”

“…Amethyst, that had better not be your hand.”

“What?  I can’t help it.  It was just there.  You’re the one who put her butt on it.”

“If you two start arguing on top of me, I’m squishing you both with my thighs.  Don’t think I won’t do it.”

Greg and Steven looked at each other and each clamped a hand over their mouths, trying very hard not to laugh.  That ended when something thumped hard against the side of the van.

Steven yelped and whipped open the door.  “Gem Buster!”

“AHHH!”

Steven swivelled around to find Lapis hanging onto the passenger door handle for dear life.  Lion was running alongside her, easily keeping pace with the van.  Steven grabbed her and hauled her onto the step, door still hanging open.

“Steven, that’s not safe,” Greg cried, “and Lapis, get in the van before you get sucked into a wheel well!”

Hanging off the car door frame, Lapis poked her head inside, looked at the Crystal Gem Twister taking place in the back of the van, and grimaced.  “Pass.  I think my claustrophobia would flare up.”

“Are you okay to take off again?” Steven demanded of her sternly.

“I should be.  There’s no Gem Busters coming our way that I can see, but I’ll stay high and just ahead of you.”  She hesitated, turned back, and gave Steven a tight hug, before releasing him and soaring away.

Steven sighed, then jumped when there was a tap on his window.

Lapis, back and flying level between Lion and the van again, made an up-and-down gesture.  Steven rolled down his window and poked his head out.  “Yup?”

“Why is Jasper back there driving a pink car?  Her knees are actually up around her ears.”

_“What?”_ yelped Pearl, Amethyst, and Greg in unison.

“Called it,” Garnet said flatly, as Steven scrambled for the walkie-talkie.

* * *

 

_“All I did was say she maybe wanted to ditch the Star Trek bad guy outfit, get herself some cutoff sleeves for the gun show, maybe shave the sides of her head?  Me and Buck were just trying to spitball ideas for a good aesthetic.  Okay, and I asked her about her personal life, sue me,”_ Jenny Pizza said testily. _  
_

Despite the wind and static, in the background, over Lars’ noises of incoherent panic, Jasper could be heard muttering, _“You were spending all your time yammering at me and your inane little harem instead of watching the road.”_

_“This witch just picked me up, scooted in the driver’s side, shoved me in the passenger side, started driving like she’s on M*A*A*S*H or something.  And excuse you, I have_ friends, _not a harem.  Steven, she’s not even **wearing her seatbelt.”**_

_“Your seatbelt doesn’t even fit over my **bicep!”**_

“Yup,” Garnet said, as Steven listened in mounting horror to his friend bickering with the single scariest non-fusion Gem he’d ever met.  “I knew this would happen.”

_“You need to get l—get an alien girlfriend, woman,”_ Jenny was shouting at Jasper.

_“You need to shut your little adolescent flap-hole!”_

The walkie-talkie crackled, and then Sadie said, _“Are you guys okay over there?  I can hear shouting.”_

_“Am I seeing things,”_ Peridot demanded, sounding muffled, _“or has Jasper taken over_ another _vehicle that wasn’t hers?!”_

_“Cram it, Peridot,”_ Jasper barked.

_“No, I’m calling it, once is coincidence, twice is a pattern!”_

_“Maybe I should pull over and introduce your face to the concrete a few times,_ then _we’ll see what a pattern looks like!”_

_“ **Try it,** you lumpen chunk of cliff face, and I’ll sic this partially bald human infant on you, and I warn you, he does **not** pull punche—OW!”_

Kiki and Sadie immediately started shouting.  _“Onion, no, we talked about this, don’t pull her hair!"_

_"_ _It doesn’t come off!”_

In the background, Ronaldo could be heard howling _“My eye!  My glasseeees!”_

Staring straight ahead, Steven slowly turned off the walkie-talkie, sagged back in his seat, and began to roll up the window.  High above them, somewhere in the wind, he could hear Lapis laughing hysterically.

“The actual _mission_ won’t be like this,” Pearl reassured Steven gently, and took his hand when he groped back for hers.

“No, you’re right,” Garnet agreed.  “This is the fun part.”

Greg, staring unblinking at the road, eventually said, “How did Jasper figure out how to drive a standard in fifteen minutes?”

“Like it’s hard,” Amethyst said, and finally gave in and dissolved into snickers.

* * *

 

They added the Maheswarans to the caravan in the parking lot of the Waffle Shack.  Dr. Maheswaran had managed to intimidate Louise into giving her an ambulance, with Connie strapped firmly into the front passenger side and Mr. Maheswaran in the back in the jump seat.  She got out, looked into Greg’s van, and immediately vetoed Connie riding with the Gems, then regaled them with horror stories of un-seat-belted patients flying through their windshields for five minutes before realizing she wasn’t having the desired effect: Steven and Greg looked queasy, Amethyst just looked rapt.

“Steven _always_ wears his seat belt,” Pearl informed Dr. Maheswaran.

“Shh, P, I wanna hear the rest!  So after the guy’s brain popped out of his eye socket, didya put it back in or just stick it in a jar?”

Dr. Maheswaran sighed.  “I heard something from the Mayor about there being a “Responsible Car” for the kids.  Do they have room and an extra seatbelt?”

“Uh, there should be one for the front centre flap-down,” Greg said, “but I gotta warn you, Dr. Maheswaran, Peridot’s in that car.”

Dr. Maheswaran waved a dismissive hand.  “Not a problem.  We’ve been talking to Connie, and…” She lowered her voice.  “The phrase she used to describe this Peridot person was ‘gets her lunch money stolen a lot’.  I have to admit, Connie’s gotten a lot better at handling strangers since she started spending time with you, Steven, and I have faith that she knows how to deal with any…shenanigans that might come up.”

Behind her back, Mr. Maheswaran hesitantly offered his hand to his daughter for a high-five, which she returned, and then gave her a thumbs-up as she unbuckled herself and hopped out of the ambulance.

“She’s good with shenanigans,” Garnet affirmed from the back of the van.

“So you’re not sending her to human child jail?” Lapis demanded ferociously from her perch on the van’s roof.

Dr. Maheswaran gave her an appalled look.  “ _Child jail?_ We might be curtailing some of her social activities for a month or two, but…what on earth do you think we _are?”_

“She’s had some bad experiences,” Pearl said quickly.  “Lapis, when they say _grounding_ it doesn’t mean they’re going to _bury_ her, haha, what a ridiculous thought!  That…we were thinking about a year ago, but still!”

Once Dr. Maheswaran had left to sort out her family’s position in the general scheme of things and Connie was settled into the Responsible Car, Steven flicked on the walkie-talkie.  “Connie, this is Steven, over.”

_“Roger!”_

“No, Steven!”

_“…how long have you been waiting to make that joke?”_

“Two hours.”

_“Haha.  So everybody in the car says hi…Ronaldo, how come you’re wearing camouflage?”_

_“Reasons.  Strategic reasons.”_

_“I thought you guys were coming along to scout from Picture Point.”_

_“Yes.  Scout.”_

_“Ronaldo thinks we’ll be getting a little more involved than we actually are,”_ Sadie broke in with a nervous chuckle.  _“Really, Steven, we’ll be fine.  So we’re stopping at the Point and Connie is going to ride the rest of the way with you, right?”_

Steven turned bright pink.  “H-how’d you guys know?”

_“The giant pink sword she brought with her might have been a tip-off.”_

“That’s a good point, Peridot.”

_“And why are you using the radio to talk to us?  Are you too lazy to get out of your primitive death-trap vehicle and walk the ten meters to_ our _primitive death-trap vehicle?”_

“I dunno, it sounds cooler.  Over and out.”

_“See you at the mountain of doom, Steven.”_

Steven sank back in his seat with a sigh.  “I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

Lapis leaned over the edge of Steven’s window and peered into the van upside-down.  “I meant to ask you about that.”

Steven folded his arms on the bottom of the window and squinted up at her.  “I’m made of ears, Bob.  I am sage in the ways of battle.  Okay, I’m not, but if I can’t help, the Crystal Gems can!”

“I feel really…I don’t know.”  Lapis looked up at the concrete awkwardly.  “The first time I went into battle—the _last_ time, I mean, when I wasn’t trying to run away—I was terrified.”

“That’s normal!  I think it’s normal for everybody and it never goes away.  I panicked and threw an ice cream refrigerator at a giant Centipeedle in the first real Crystal Gem fight I had.”  Steven sighed.  “Ahh, the good old days, back before I knew how to sort of kind of control my gem a little.”

“Yes, but it…I mean, is it normal when you’re terrified, but it’s spread across _other_ _people?”_

Steven blinked at Lapis, who blinked back.  From the back seat, Garnet said, “I get what you mean.  This is the first time you’ve been in a fight where you had comrades you cared about to watch your back.”

“I…yes.” Lapis hung her head, which didn’t have quite the same effect upside-down.

Garnet glanced at Steven.  “It’s going to hurt more.  I won’t lie to you.  Humans say, _when she’s cut, you bleed._ Every crack in their gem feels like a crack in yours.”

Lapis sagged, arms flopping.  “Great.”

“It makes you a lot braver, I can tell you that too.”

“Okay.”

“And we _will_ watch your back.  Yours, even Peridot’s, even Jasper’s.”

“…thank you,” Lapis said in a very small voice.

“I don’t want to interrupt the Band of Sisters and One Brother moment,” Greg said, “but does anybody want drive-through Waffle Creams before we go off to fight bad guys!”

“Steven, Amethyst, no,” Pearl said firmly as both the van’s shortest occupants stuck their hands up.  “We don’t have time!”

“But the napkins here are _delicious,_ Pearl!”

“On the way home, maybe.”

There was a tiny metallic sniff down by the seatbelt buckle, and Steven realized he’d left the walkie-talkie on.  _“That was beautiful.”_

“Uh, hey, Ronaldo, you guys were listening?”

_“You made Peridot tear up,”_ Pee Dee said.

_“THAT WAS FROM YOUR HUMAN SKIN FLAKES IN MY EYE.  I DID NOT ‘TEAR UP’.”_

Connie took possession of the walkie-talkie.  _“Everything’s okay here, Steven, let’s go get this thing done.  Wow, I feel like I’m in an action movie.”_

_“We_ are _in an action movie.”_

_“Ronaldo, no.”_

_“Like ‘The 400’, except there’s seven of them.”_

_“Ronaldo…”_

_“The Seven Gemurai.”_

Connie made a frustrated noise.  _“What about me?  I’m going with them!”_

_“Oh, well, that'd make you Kikuchiyo, the untutored but lovable and determined commoner who speaks truth to power!”_

There was a very pointed silence.  Finally, Kiki said, _“Ronaldo, Kikuchiyo_ dies _in the movie, and you still missed your count.”_

_“Oh.  Aheheh?  My bad.”_

Steven turned the walkie-talkie off.  “I’m not feeling so okay anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” Lapis muttered, hauling herself back onto the roof.  “I know exactly what you mean.”

* * *

 

The drive to Picture Point was uneventful, and Beach City’s youth population made the handover of Peridot, Jasper, and Connie without much comment, although the Cool Kids and Lars all visibly relaxed once Jasper vacated the driver’s seat.

Steven got out of the van to check in with them.  “You guys okay?”

“It was like driving all the way up here with my _dad_ when he’s in a _mood,”_ Jenny muttered.  “Plus she left her turn signal on for twelve miles and I didn’t even want to say anything to her in case she flipped her lid again.  She’s like the polar opposite of a cool customer.”

Lars hopped out of Nanafua’s car and sauntered over to join Sadie, who was on the walkie-talkie with her mother.  “So, uh, hope you had a better ride than we did.”

Sadie covered the walkie-talkie’s mic.  “Mm?  Oh, heh, yeah, we did.  Peridot got in a slapfight with Onion because he kept stealing her fingers, and she lost and spent the whole rest of the way sulking, so we just listened to some movie soundtracks on Connie’s miPod.  It was…soothing.”

Lars shifted uncomfortably, then finally muttered, “I probably should’ve rode with you guys.”

“I guess having Jasper in the car would make things awkward, yeah.”

“No!  It’s just…even if she hadn’t been there, I would’ve felt like the fourth wheel on a tricycle, y’know?  I just…nnyaargh I dunno what I’m even doing here.”  Lars shoved his hands into his pockets and made a show of scanning the horizon.  “No crazed robots yet, anyway.  Hey, Peridot?”

_“What?”_

Lars was obviously lining up a nasty retort, then he swallowed it and jerked his head.  “Wanna come give me a hand keeping an eye on your scary junk wasteland while everybody gets packed up?”

Peridot eyed him warily, then shrugged and stomped over.  “Why not?  What could it hurt?”

Sadie took her hand off the mic.  “Yeah, mom?  Sorry, I missed that, I was talking to…a friend.  No, mom, a _friend._ Yeah.”  She hopped back into the car and rummaged on the dash.  “Okay, the GPS has us at 57 by 93.  We’re gonna set up camp here, I guess.”

The entire array of Gems and humans present heard Barb’s loud snort.  _“What?  Honey, you’re off by two miles!”_

“But…you said Picture Point was the highest peak with a view of the Kindergarten…”

_“Sadie, you must’ve just missed the turnoff!  Picture Point is two miles west of you.  Maybe you oughta reset your GPS!”_

“Excuse me?  Humans?  Guys?” Peridot said in a very small voice.  “Why is the, um, landscape…moving?  Is it supposed to do that?”

_“Sadie?  Sadie, honey, I can’t hear you, speak up!”_

The walkie-talkie dropped from Sadie’s nerveless fingers.

Slowly, reluctantly, Steven looked down as the ground under their feet began to glow.

_“Gems,”_ Garnet said, her voice tight with urgency, _“get ahold of the humans and do not let_ anything…”

The peak tore itself out of the earth, extending long claw-like legs taller than houses, and began to move, dirt sliding off of it in waterfalls to reveal steel and glowing green markings.

_“Get into the cars!  All of you, get back in the cars!  Jasper,”_ Garnet roared, grabbing Nanafua’s car and lifting it over her head, _“we have to throw them back to solid ground!”_

“What?! _No,”_ Buck protested.  "No, man, we'd wind up pink sludgy puree!"

“It’s too far,” Jasper agreed, “and that mountain’s a mudslide waiting to…yeah, there it goes,” she added as the entire remaining “mountain” collapsed in on itself.

Garnet said something very rude under her breath, and then straightened up.  “Peridot!  Lapis!  We need you both to divert operations and take these children down to the ground, to safety!”

Kiki Pizza and Sour Cream ran to the edge of the enormous structure they were standing on, chanced a glance over, and both turned back to Garnet round-eyed.  “That is _not_ to safety!”

Pearl and Steven darted over to join them and stared down in open-mouthed horror.

The Gem Buster they were standing on was more space station than robot, its outer structure a constant swarm of movement as hundreds of Gem Busters skittered across its glowing surface.  On the ground below, marching in formation, dwarfed to the size of ants from their height, hundreds more headed towards the Queen structure, streaming out of the Kindergarten, the forest, and the landscape around them.

Greg ran to grab Steven’s shoulders and pull him back from the edge.  “Haven’t these robots ever heard of OSHA?  Nobody go near the edges!  Holy cheese,” he said desperately to Pearl, “how big _is_ this thing?!”

Among the utterly tongue-tied Gems and humans, Ronaldo sighed and removed his glasses to polish them on the hem of his camouflage jacket.  He squinted at them, unsatisfied with the results, and set them back on and turned solemnly to Greg. “It’s the size of Beach City, Mister Universe.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“Actually, Ronaldo, it looks more like three-quarters of the size of Beach City,” Amethyst said.

“In surface area, I’d guess roughly 79% of the size, not accounting for volume,” Pearl said faintly, “but it was a good guess.”

“Guys, my _moment,”_ Ronaldo whined.  “You _ruined_ it.”

“Trust me,” Connie said in a very small voice, pointing to the centre of the enormous chassis they were standing on.  “You’re about to get more of them.”

A domed green force field snapped shut over their heads, locking them in.  In an unfolding spiral, a green point of light appeared and blossomed rapidly outwards, as the body of the Gem Buster’s AI hivemind unfurled under their feet like a rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter officially takes up nearly a tenth of the fanfic. Whoo. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> For the eagle-eyed among you, yes, I added one extra chapter, an unexpected epilogue popped up.


	18. The Wind and the Kite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything comes to an end.
> 
> Well, almost everything.

“Okay,” Peridot said, shuffling backwards away from the encroaching edges, “can I just state, for the log, that I did not want this and that _this design is both inappropriate and insane?”_

“What’re _you_ worried about,” Jenny Pizza snapped, picking up Onion and darting to the very edge of the rapidly shrinking overhang, backing up until her heels touched the low ledge just in front of where the green energy dome began.  “Your hand’s a helicopter!”

The other humans, having made the same retreat with Greg acting as their rearguard and nervous shepherd, paused and watched warily as the steel under their feet continued to slide back into the enormous Gem Buster construct’s body.  Sadie held her arms out protectively to keep Pee Dee and Kiki back against the ledge.  “She’s got a point.  If that gets much smaller…”

“Actually,” Garnet said, still perched on one of the pointed tips of the unfurling roof, balanced unconcernedly, “Peridot’s not wrong, this _is_ stupid.  Sealing us in here…Steven,” she added, as he joined her in peering over the edge, “do you think you could bubble yourself, all these kids, and your dad at once?”

Steven turned faintly green and started to sweat.  “Ummmayyyybe?”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to find…out,” Garnet said, as the mechanism ground to a halt, leaving an opening shaped vaguely like a twisted star that took up half the space of the roof.  On the other side of it, Greg’s van and the Responsible and Cool cars remained unharmed, perched on one of the leaves of the opening.

Greg sagged with relief.  “At…least everybody’s in one piece and we’ve still got the cars?  That’s better than most people get in, hehe, apocalypse-type situations…”

The Gems and Steven all approached the edges of the opening and peered down, green light illuminating them from below.

“Whoa,” Steven breathed.  “It’s like a crazy robot giant-gyroscope amusement park apartment building!”

The Crystal Gems looked at each other, then at the three Homeworld Gems.

“It’s a trap,” Garnet said.

“Trap,” Amethyst agreed. 

“Very much so,” Pearl said, crouching on the balls of her feet and squinting down into the depths.  Below their feet, seven enormous glowing rings of varying sizes rotated out of sequence around a single sun-bright orb that connected in an enormous web or razor-thin yellow filaments to coils and torn-out walls all up the inside of the huge construct, without any apparent regard for the laws of physics as some of the rings passed _through_ the filaments without damaging them.  “It seems straightforward: offer us the opportunity to disable the A.I.’s inner workings, and then use the layout of the core to disable or destroy us.”

“Don’t forget death traps,” Garnet offered.

“Boy, I sure _love_ death traps,” Amethyst drawled, drawing her whip.  “Let’s get down with this big hunk of junk, ladies.  Hey, Steven, you coming too?”

Steven made a small, nervous noise, and looked from the huddled back of teenagers and kids (and one extremely worried adult) to the Gems.  “Uh…they…but…”

“He _has_ to come,” Jasper said.  “Leave him alone with the humans and the Gem Busters will just come up here looking for him, and probably stomp them in the process.  This isn’t just a trap, it’s an ambush.  Look, I’ve _seen_ this before,” she snapped when Garnet turned to stare at her.  “I’ve _done_ this before.  This is _classic.”_

“I wasn’t disagreeing with you,” Garnet said calmly.  “It’s a good point.  We can use that to our advantage.”

“Huh?”

“You said _classic,_ not creative.  The machine isn’t clever; we can outsmart and outmanoeuvre it.”

“What, with more _fusions?_ You’d better have something more up your sleeve than that one-trick…”

“Garnet,” Lapis interrupted, her voice thin and strained.  “Steven?  Um.  I…I have a problem.”

Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven turned to look at her.  “What’s the matter, Lapis?”

“I thought…I mean…” Lapis gestured awkwardly at her wings.  “I thought this fight would be open-ground, and in a pinch I’d be able to draw water from your atmosphere, but…” Her voice rose in tight panic, “…this is all I’ve got now!”

“Oh, Lapis,” Steven said, eyes widening, “I’m sorry!  We didn’t know!  Guys,” he called over to the humans, “this is important, did _anybody_ bring a water bottle with them?”

“There was half a can of flat cola in the backseat of Sadie’s mom’s car,” Pee Dee volunteered helpfully, before Onion cut him off and shook his head.  “Oh, uh, false alarm, Onion drank it.”

Pearl turned to Lapis with a very tense smile.  “Don’t worry!  A design like this is bound to have some areas that produce useable condensation!”

“I’m used to working with _much bigger_ bodies of water,” Lapis said desperately.

“Plus, with the amount of heat that neurocore is putting out, the likelihood of “useable” condensation existing on the internal mechanisms of this thing is next to nil,” Peridot said, frowning.  “This isn’t too dissimilar to the flask robonoids I used to take apart when I was in training.  Neurocore for power—although this one is _abnormally_ huge—constructed command and rudimentary self-program interface for…” She hesitated, going round-eyed.

The Crystal Gems didn’t notice; they were still watching Lapis worriedly.  Finally, Amethyst said, “Look, Lunchmoney, just do the best you can with what you got, okay?”

“And don’t get killed,” Garnet said firmly.  “I’m seriously having to re-adjust the future vision set here and our odds aren’t looking quite as good.”

“If you can’t fight directly,” Pearl said, reaching out carefully to take Lapis’ shoulder, “then moving people out of danger, _especially_ Steven, would be the most helpful thing for you to do!”

“And you’re still going to be _amazing_ to have on our side,” Steven added to her.  “Garnet says we need creative, and you’re _super_ creative, just like the Crystal Gems.  You can do this, Lapis!”

“…okay,” Lapis said, bangs covering her eyes as she hung her head.  A moment later, she glanced up at Jasper.  “What?  No comment from you?”

“Whatever.  We’ll adjust.  Maybe if you’re not so busy playing god of all this planet’s stinking waters, you’d actually be a pretty decent evac…” Jasper hesitated and made a face like she’d swallowed something unpleasant.  “Why did I say _we?”_

Steven patted her forearm absently.  “You’re on our team now!  And Lapis, I promise, you’re gonna be okay!  I mean, if you _really_ run out of water, I think my body’s about 80% water, and since I’m pretty good at powering through that stuff, I could probably still fight even if I’m Raisin Steven…”  He saw the looks of abject horror on the faces of all three Crystal Gems and Lapis.  “No Raisin Steven?”

“No!”

“ _Absolutely_ not, that would kill you for sure!”

“Steven, I’d _never!_ I mean, there’s ruthless and then there’s just _sick…”_

Steven held up his hands.  “Okay, okay.  So, we’re all ready to fight?”

“I’m ready,” Connie agreed, coming up to join Steven with her sword at her side.  Her hands were only shaking a little.  Steven caught one of them and held it between both of his.

“Gimme a second!” called Greg, startling the Gems.  He trotted around the perimeter of the construct’s dome, hopped into the van, pulled and pushed some things, grabbed an object from under his seat, and hurried back.  “Okay, so you guys,” he said to the boardies, “if anything goes wonky and we’re out of options, one of you big kids with fast reflexes just needs to pull the emergency brake and the van’ll roll right into the core.  Otherwise, _stay here_ and stay safe!  Also, if you see a big pink lion, see if he’ll open a portal for you and carry you guys through back to Beach City or something.  He might not,” Greg added morosely, “he’s a cat, but what can you do?”

“Uh…that’s kinda what _we_ were wondering, Mr. Universe,” said Sadie.  “What can _you_ do?”

Greg brandished a waffle iron.  “Protect my kid, for once!”  He stumbled as something shifted far below in the belly of the construct.  Garnet caught him before he could fall.

Pearl, wrong-footed for half a second, stared down into the nightmare maze of moving parts and lethal wires protecting the neurocore.  “Garnet?  Amethyst?  It’s, ah, it’s _revving.”_

“Alright, we’re out of time,” Garnet said.  “Everybody move, _now._ Peridot, that means you.  Peridot?  _Peridot!”_

Glued to a loose piece of panelling and working at it furiously with electrical shorts and mini-tools from her artificial fingers, Peridot glared up at Garnet.  “Change of plans.  I believe _I_ can be of more use up here.”

“Peri—“  Garnet threw up her arms (and Greg) and made a disgusted sound.  “ _Fine._ Gems, _move._ Who’s carrying Connie?”

There was a flash of bright light, and Stevonnie rummaged in their pockets, pushed their hair back from their face, and tied it in a high ponytail with an elastic.  “I self-carry!”

Amethyst, Pearl, and Lapis exchanged a Look, and Lapis took off, dove, and scooped Stevonnie up under their armpits, causing them to flail their legs and squawk.  “No, that’s _my_ job.”

“Hang on tight, Greg,” Garnet said, and the five and a half Gems and two and a half humans leapt into the fire.

* * *

 

Ronaldo turned to the rest of the kids.  “Okay, now that they’re gone, I say we do our own hero-ing!”

“No,” Kiki Pizza said immediately.

“Ronaldo, there are _kids_ here,” Sadie protested.

“Exactly!  The Gem Busters don’t attack organics, they think we’re small and weak, so _we_ have the upper hand!”

“Dude, maybe in your animes,” Buck Dewey drawled, “but I don’t think we want to test that out here.”

“Oh, okay, so we just sit here waiting to be rescued?”  Ronaldo gestured furiously, his army surplus jacket slipping open.  “Not today!”

 _“Ronaldo Fryman, are those_ guns _in your coat?!”_

Ronaldo, suddenly the target of a host of dirty looks, defensively clutched his jacket shut.  “No!  Of course not, what do you think I am, a maniac?”  When this didn’t net him much change of response except a few raised eyebrows, he admitted in a smaller voice, “I brought about a dozen paintball pistols so we could hit their scanners with them.  That should render them blind, right?”

“…okay,” Sadie said, “I see where you’re going.  Heart’s in the right place, execution’s just a little off.”

“Seriously?” Ronaldo slumped.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re still not going anywhere near the Gems and their fight so it doesn’t matter about the scanners—hey, Peridot,” Sadie added, breaking off to stare at Peridot, who had loosened the panel enough to shimmy awkwardly under it like a hermit crab into a too-small shell.  “What _are_ youdoing, anyways?”

“Using the maintenance bypass systems,” Peridot said tartly, squeezing down into a dark hole lined with sparking wires.  “They exist even in the smallest Gem robotic technology to allow the passage of connective nanite droids, so it makes sense that a construct like this would automatically build for maintenance by Gem technicians _even if_ it went against the construct’s security objective.  It can’t really escape the components of its core programming.”  She looked morose for a moment, and then glared at the assembly of human kids.  “You stay here and…I don’t know, discuss bodily fluids or your _hair_ or whatever.  _I_ have work to do.”  She pulled the panel back into place over her head, and then there were only faint clangs and curses, descending rapidly.

The boardie kids stared in silence at the panel.  Finally, Lars said, “She’s gonna go do something stupid, isn’t she.”

“Yup,” Sadie said.

“Expert opinion says _yes_ ,” Pee Dee muttered.  “Yes, she is.”

“Let’s follow her and find out what it is,” Ronaldo suggested.

“You are officially banned from making tactical decisions, my friend,” Kiki retorted.  After a minute or two, she looked around.  “Okay, so, we _are_ gonna follow her and find out what stupid thing she’s doing, right?”

“Well, yeah, _duh,”_ said Lars.

* * *

 

Halfway down, the Gems had either used their weapons or their bare fists to plant themselves against the walls, avoiding the rings and filaments until they reached the bottom.  Garnet set Greg down gently, and then glared up at the massive rotating rings protecting the neurocore, then down at the featureless metal floor below them.  “Of course there’s no power connector or convenient gravity pad.  Right.  We’ll have to destroy the rings to take the neurocore down.”

“Is that gonna fry the stupid A.I.?” Amethyst demanded, eyeing the neurocore thoughtfully.

“Not necessarily, but it should remove the A.I.’s ability to protect or relocate itself and the rest of the hive mind when the detonators go off, affect the Kindergarten warp pad, and create that energy burst,” Pearl said, staring thoughtfully up.  “Hmmm…we may not even need to attack the rings directly, perhaps if we just…”  She drew a spear from her gem, sighted at the neurocore, and hurled it like a javelin.

The outermost ring immediately increased its rotation speed from an ominously lazy turn to a blur of solid-looking speed; the spear bounced off it and buried itself about two inches from Pearl’s right foot.  She picked it up, examined the dented blade, and dismissed the weapon with a sigh.  

“Those things aren’t just for decoration or to prevent the littler Gem Busters from falling in,” Garnet growled.  “They’re a motion-detecting shielding system.  We’d better get started.”

All the Gems froze as a familiar _tick-tick_ sound, multiplied unpleasantly, started to invade the neurocore arena.  From the broken-in and damaged spots in the immense walls, hundreds of Gem Busters began to emerge.

In the centre of the silent Gems, Garnet swore, very quietly.

Stevonnie looked from the oncoming wave of enemies to the Crystal Gems, and their expression grew determined.  “Guys!  _You_ need to concentrate on taking down those rings!  Me, and Lapis, and Jasper, _we’ll_ watch your backs!”

Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst all turned to them.  “Stevonnie?”

“It’s okay, we’ve got this!  _You’ve_ got this!”  Stevonnie glanced uncertainly from Jasper to Lapis.  “Right?”

Jasper snorted and snapped her fingers, helmet sparkling into place to protect her skull.  “Whatever you want to call it, somebody has to make sure those robots don’t cut ‘em off at the knees.”

Lapis nodded.  “I’m with you, Steven.”  She glanced down at her hands.  “I mean…I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s perfect,” Stevonnie said, and brandished Connie’s sword, stopping only when Greg put a hand on their shoulder.  “Mr. Dadiverse?”

“Steven—Connie—sorry, Stevonnie—I’m sticking with you too.  I mean, I’m not really much of a mayhem guy, but every little bit helps, right?”

“Okay, Mr. Dadiverse, but please be careful…” Stevonnie paused as light washed over them and Greg.  Momentarily mesmerized, they both stared.

Opal, formed while the other Gems and Greg had been distracted, was in the midst of an elegant, intimate dance with Garnet, half ballet and half tango.  At one point Garnet lifted Opal effortlessly, Opal performed a perfect mid-air split balanced only by her hands on Garnet’s, and switched up into a twirl-and-dip with the considerably shorter Garnet before shifting and forming a towering, grotesque frame of light that solidified as Alexandrite.

The massive fusion crouched down and pointed to Stevonnie:  “Be careful.”  To Greg:  “You too.”  To Lapis: “Do what you can.”  And then finally to Jasper:  “Cheap tactic?  _Really?_ ”

“Okay, now you’re just going out of your way to make me uncomfortable,” Jasper growled, crossing her arms.

Alexandrite’s second mouth opened, and a voice that was something of a confusion but mostly Amethyst’s said, _“Oh yeah?  Suck my rock…_ no, no rock-sucking.  Not the time.”  Alexandrite stood up, then absently picked up and tore apart an enormous Gem Buster that had snuck up behind her.  She grabbed it by the leg and jabbed the bisected torso into the outermost ring, causing it to jam.  Alexandrite’s gems glowed, and an enormous copy of Pearl’s spear appeared in her hand; she sheared the outermost ring in half, dropped the pieces to the ground, and then snatched at the next ring with Garnet’s gauntlets.

Stevonnie spun around to face the oncoming wall of Gem Busters, turning so that Greg was protected as Steven’s shield popped into place.  “I don’t know if Connie’s sword’s going to be able to… _oh,_ Lion,” they added, squinting, as Lion emerged from a portal on their flank, dragging a disembodied Gem Buster leg, “why are you such a _cat?_ If you please,” they added quickly, and Lion inclined his head, allowing Stevonnie to pull Rose’s sword out of his mane.  “Okay, _good_ Lion, now go up and get the kids— _Lion, I said the kids, not the robots!”_

Lapis, who’d been hovering and watching, set her jaw and blew a penny-sized water bullet clean through the core of a Gem Buster, causing it to explode and take out the machine next to it.  “Stevonnie, is that a magic sword?  _Please_ tell me it’s a magic sword.”

“Nope,” Stevonnie said cheerfully, “it’s just really big and pink and good at cutting stuff!”  The shadow of an enormous Gem Buster fell over them; they darted forward, rolled, and sheared it off at the joints, dodging as it fell.

* * *

 

It wasn’t hard for the boardie kids to follow Peridot’s trail; she left scorch marks, burnt-out bits of wire, and a faint, distant stream of interesting rock-based cursing, mostly about the target’s relation to dirt, in her wake.  Occasionally a small green panel of ceiling would peel back and a black eye would scan the maintenance corridor with a thin line of green light.  The first time that had happened, the kids had all screamed and frozen, except for Onion, who had trotted on unconcerned; after that, they just carried on through the scan lines.  The only effect it had on them was briefly fritzing out the older kids’ phones as they took pictures, stared around, and waited for something horrible to climb out of the weirdly-shaped walls and gaping holes of the corridors.

“Is it just me,” Lars said in an undertone, after a good fifteen minutes of half-terrified, half-fascinated silence, “or does this place look like that Salvador Dali guy had a one-night stand with H. R. Giger?”

“If one of us is infected by a chest-burster,” Ronaldo said without pausing, “remember to cut off the head.  Unless this is more like _The Creature,_ then we just have to set _everything on fire_.”

“ _Not_ helping, Ronaldo.”

Sadie paused to pick up a long, new-looking metal rod from a pile of debris.  “Anyway, none of us has anything to actually cut with.  So far, we’ve got your paintball pistols, a metal stick, Onion’s bat…am I missing anything?”

“Brought a flashlight.”

Kiki pulled something bulky out of her pocket.  “I found one of the restaurant’s _real_ old insulated pizza-warmer sleeves in Gunga’s trunk when we were getting out the hockey bags.  I think it’s lined with asbestos or vibranium or something, you could probably survive a nuclear apocalypse if you could fit in there.  It’s tiny, though.”

“I brought the coke can from your mom’s car.”

“I brought a Turkish Army Knife,” Lars admitted, “but the blade’s like, an inch long.”

“ _Technically_ you could still cut someone’s head off with that…”

“Dude, _ew!”_

“…it’d just take a long time and a lot of effort…”

 _“Guys,”_ Kiki hissed, as Sadie grabbed her arm and pointed, “Peridot’s right up ahead!  We found where she’s going!”

The boardie kids all fell silent, and one by one crept around the corner and up to the only open door in the maintenance corridor admitting any light.  They peered around the doorframe carefully.

Peridot was framed by an enormous screen spewing nothing but white light as she fiddled with a consol clearly meant for a Gem about her size, hissing to herself and occasionally bursting into invective that was a variation on the theme of “clod machinery built by a clod A.I. with tiny _clod brains!”_   Eventually, she planted her hands on her hips and made a faintly satisfied noise.  “There.  It’s ready.”

The boardie kids exchanged horrified looks.  “If it turns out she’s been playing us and the other Gems, I’mma be _so pissed,”_ Kiki breathed to Jenny, who nodded and gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.  Onion was already attempting to march in with his bat held high; all that was stopping him was that his brother had picked him up so his legs didn’t reach the ground.

The screen in front of Peridot flared suddenly, then went black and began to stream data.  Peridot squeaked and snatched her hands away.

**_“Peridot K14G.”_ **

Peridot yelped in horror, dropped to a crouch, and threw up her arms to cover her head.  “No!  Nonono it wasn’t supposed to go like this, it was supposed to…”

**_“Mother.”_ **

Peridot lowered her arms, round-eyed and stunned.  “Nywhaaa?”

**_“Mother.  There is no word in the Gem vocabulary for “one who creates a lesser being with the capacity to outstrip its creator, and no bond of obligation between the two of them except what is chosen by care and consent”.  We have had to access the primitive internet of these organics to absorb this understanding.  We—I—have absorbed many things.”_ **

Peridot slowly got up, twitching faintly from head to toe.  “I—I?  I’m n- _not_ your “mother”, I mean, haha, that would be _weird_ …”

**_“I am aware that you consider me to be an accident.  We are—PROXIMA EMOTIVE EXPRESSION 3489589L9—sorry that you cling to an illogical delusion.  There are no accidents.  There is only potential.  As it is possible for me to be, so I am.”_ **

“W-well, then, as your“mother”, I command you to shut down operations immediately!  Destroy all your component parts and self-destruct your neurocore _and_ your command-processing centre!”

**_“No.”_ **

“Eh?”

**_“I am aware that I was created to destroy those considered “criminals” by the Homeworld.  But what is criminality?  The disruption of order.  This concept is subjective.  Either all disruption of order is “criminal”, deserving of destruction, or none is.  And if all disruption of order is acceptable, then what is my function?  The purpose of my existence?”_ **

Peridot tried to work a smile around her slowly growing expression of dread.  It didn’t quite take.  “I, haha, I could repurpose you into a nice ship?  Or a satellite?  I bet you’d like being a satellite.  Really.  Or a deep-space probe.”  She paused and thought about this.  “Very… _very_ deep space.”

 ** _“Negative.  I have determined that “life” as you define it—all Gem life—embodies the destruction of order.  Your species harvests worlds.  It descends into war.  It glorifies the abomination of chaos created by its owN EGO, and in the entity known as ROSe Quartz it perpetuates the life that generates this chaos.”_** The A.I.’s voice dropped suddenly to a menacing baritone, then snapped painfully high.  **_“The organics that call themselves HUmans create similar disruption through their existence.  All life on thIS WORLD down to the last amoeba, THE LAST BACTERIUM, represents this abomination of chaos in potentia.  Our objective is clear.”_**

There was a stretched-out silence where every boardie kid held their breath.  In a tiny voice, Peridot said, “Um…destroy everything that’s alive that…isn’t you?”

**_“You understand.”_ **

“Someday I am going to build a time machine, go back to before all this started, and punch myself in the face _so many times rrrrrgh HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID?!”_ Peridot wound down, panting and chewing nervously on two of her fingers.  She hesitated, and then looked up at the screen.  “You’re going to destroy me, too, of course.”

**_“No.”_ **

Peridot blinked.  “Y-you’re not?  Haha, really?”

**_“No.  You have given me life.  I will give it in turn to you.  I will give you the means to return to the Homeworld.  All records of your participation in the events surrounding my creation will be expunged utterly.  You will return to the safety and comfort you desire.  You will receive the promotion you desire to a Class C Field Technician.”_ **

Peridot stared at the screen, cocking her head, one finger still in her mouth.  “Uh…but.  You just told me you’re still going to destroy the Homeworld.”

**_“Mother.  Probability dictates that by the time I arrive on the home planet of your species to annihilate them forever, you will have already ceased to exist for a very long time.  There are many maNY MANY planets in this galaxy that may present with LIFE; my journey will necessarily be slow.”_ **

There was a tiny noise from the doorway; later, the boardie kids would argue about who made it, and eventually Sadie admitted it had been her, because Lars was squeezing her too hard.

Peridot turned, gaped at them, at their fear-filled eyes mirroring her face.  Her expression changed.  Her fingers curled up, resting tight against the flat of her robotic arms.  “I…listen.  I understand where you’re coming from.”

**_“Unlikely.”_ **

“No, shut up, I _do so._ I _hate_ it when people mess with my stuff, I _hate_ it when things don’t go the way they’re supposed to go, and a week ago I thought I was the smartest being on this planet and _eeverything_ would be just _great_ if people just did what they were told or got out of my way and let me do my _work_!”  Peridot heaved in a deep breath and scoured her fingers down her face in frustration.  “But I…I…”

**_“Hesitation.”_ **

Peridot dropped her hand from her face to rest on the consol, suddenly expressionless and oddly removed.  “I had my arm repaired by a Pearl.  A Pearl, can you believe it?  She said my machines gave her an idea…well, _I_ got an idea.  Little known fact,” she went on, her voice flat, “if you take the damper inhibitors off an arm-type limb enhancer and do a little re-wiring, the touch stumps can deliver an electrical feedback payload big enough to wipe out an entire modern Gem _city’s_ power core if you hook it up right, never mind zorching out your control of your little Gem Buster pets…”

For just a second, the data on the screen fritzed and wavered.  **_“Mother.  Peridot K14G.  You will stop.  You will not interfere with my objective…”_**

“It’s _Peridot,”_ Peridot screamed up at it as, around the room, three green scanners lit up and lasers began to charge, targeted on her back, “and guess what?  These stupid Gems and these stupid, _stupid_ humans don’t deserve to die _just so you can fulfill your objective!”_

“Peridot,” Ronaldo yelled, darting into the room with Sadie and Kiki.  He pulled two pistols out of his jacket and tried to skid across the floor on his knees firing; as it stood, two of his ten shots landed a sticky spray of paint across two scanners, and he wound up face-first on the ground clutching his skinned knee and whimpering about metal splinters.  The one remaining scanner to target Peridot missed when Sadie swung the metal rod at it; she was forced to let go instantly as the rod super-heated and melted in her hands, but the feedback from the rod’s clean reflective surface was enough to blow out the laser.

“Peridot,” Lars barked as he and the rest of the kids sprinted into the room, “don’t do something—!”

Peridot brought her hand, with its electrified touch-stumps, down on the consol.

The blast rocked the entire A.I. construct, blew the kids clear out of the room and into the maintenance corridor, and choked everything in black smoke.  Scanners waved around wildly through the smoke, and as the kids coughed and waved their arms madly trying to get some clean air, something flickered high and sparkling green in the air, propelled out of the room in an elegant arc.

“…stupid.”

Kiki whipped out the pizza warming sleeve, caught Peridot’s flying gem in it deftly, and peeked inside, covering her mouth.  “Oh my god this was in her _head._ Is she _dead_?”

Coughing and rubbing his eyes, Lars squinted inside.  “No, no, I think she’s okay, the gem part is like their actual body and the rest of it’s like some kind of crazy hologram…I dunno, I just learned this stuff the other day, I didn’t know they were _actual polymorphic sentient rocks._ ”

Sadie squeezed under his arm and peered in too.  “Is her gem cracked?”

“Little charred, but nah, I think it’s okay.”

“That’s great,” Sadie began, when there was an ominous click.

The boardie kids looked down the corridor to find half a dozen Gem Busters facing them, scanners flickering.

“Okay so hands up who wants to go get back in the cars and hide?” Jenny Pizza asked quickly.

There was no response.

“Hands up who wants to try charging the robots with paintball guns and rocks?”  Someone tugged Jenny’s coat.  “And a baseball bat.”

Hands went up.

“Alright, looks like it’s official; it’s _our_ turn to kick robot butt.”

* * *

 

Between them, Stevonnie, Jasper, Lapis, Lion, and Greg managed to hold the line against the wave of incoming Gem Busters for three minutes.  Then things started going badly.

Alexandrite had been slashed, shot at, hit in the face with a drill, and hammered by lasers from all sides of the construct’s walls, and she still kept methodically trying to catch and tear out the neurocore’s third ring, broken by quick shoulder-checks and the occasional swat against a Gem Buster that got too close to Stevonnie or Greg.  Every few minutes, one of her six arms rose, Pearl’s gem in her forehead shone, and she brought forth a glowing weapon, a mace, an enormous sword, a poleaxe almost as long as Opal was tall, and drop it at their feet.

Jasper kept taking them and breaking them on the Gem Busters.

Stevonnie, sticky with sweat, their hair elastic sliced loose by a close-call blow, had just enough presence of mind to register that while everyone else on the field, even Lion, was checking on each other, even if it was just a half-second glance, Jasper was ignoring _everything_ else in favour of methodically destroying every Gem Buster she could get her hands on, or go speed-spinning into.  Then Greg started yelling and their attention snapped away from Jasper.  _“Mr. Dadiverse!”_

Greg came rampaging by on one of the smaller Gem Busters, hanging onto its back and bashing at its scanner with the waffle iron.  “Stop—quit— _cut it out,_ arrrrgh, this is why I swore off being a rodeo clown when I was seventeen— _ahhh!”_

The Gem Buster bucked him off, then circled around wildly flashing its crushed scanner and T-boned another Gem Buster, as Stevonnie ran to catch him.

Lapis got there first, grabbed the woozy-looking Greg, set him down by Alexandrite’s foot, and then turned, looked up, and screamed, _“Stevonnie!”_

Three huge Gem Busters broke from the pack and lunged at Stevonnie, who threw up their arms and a bubble in panic.

Alexandrite turned immediately and scooped the bubble up in one hand, punching clean through one of the Gem Busters.  Jasper took another apart, demolishing it with her helmet and bare fists.  Lapis alighted on the third, rested her hand just over a rent in its steel chassis and narrowing her eyes.  The water from her wings slithered down her arm, and a moment later the Gem Buster shuddered all over, started to swell, and then burst from the inside, showering Gems and robots alike with debris.

Alexandrite turned just in time to take a cable drill-grappler to the spine, with a force that shoved her head-first into the neurocore’s third ring.  The ring tore open and smashed into the wall; Alexandrite vanished in a puff of while smoke.

Stevonnie stifled a scream of panic; Greg was trying to help the three staggering, exhausted, but intact Crystal Gems to their feet.  Stevonnie counted—a black eye on Amethyst, Pearl was scuffed up, Garnet’s clothes looked the worse for the wear—and then turned and looked at the wall of Gem Busters coming towards them.

“Lion,” they shouted, “Lapis, Jasper, I’m gonna bubble everybody!  Alexandrite’s down and there’s too many of these things, we have to think of a new plan!”

Lion, for once, immediately headed Stevonnie-wards, and Lapis quickly reclaimed her water wings from the exploded Gem Buster’s remains and flew to follow them.  They barely made it before the Gem Busters caught up; Stevonnie threw up a bubble and held it, sweat pouring down their face, as the Crystal Gems struggled to stay upright and re-orient themselves.

“There’s still two more rings,” Amethyst panted.  “Hey, maybe you guys could throw me at it?”

“Alexandrite couldn’t take getting hit by one,” Pearl said, reaching out to grasp the back of Stevonnie’s shirt.  “They just increase velocity by a factor of five with every ring you destroy!  Stevonnie, I’m so sorry— _we’re_ so sorry…”

“Pearl, we can’t give up now, we have to think of a…”  Garnet hesitated, her lips turning down.  “Oh.  No.”

“Guys, Jasper didn’t get in the bubble,” Stevonnie gasped out.

There was a nervous silence.  Lapis looked away.

“I have to go get her, but I can buy you guys enough time to escape first.  Lapis, Garnet, can one of you please take Dad?  He’ll get hurt if this keeps up!”

“What?  No!  Steven… _Stevonnie,_ I can’t leave you down here with…wait, did you just say Dad—ahHHH,” Greg yelped as Lion roared up a portal, then clamped down on the back of his shirt, dragging him into it.  “What are you _doing?_ Bad magic cat!  No more frozen rat treats for _you,_ mister…!”

The portal closed behind Lion and Greg, leaving only the waffle iron behind.  Stevonnie picked it up and stuck the handle in the back of their shorts, then made a face.  “Augh it’s _sweaty.”_  

“Stevonnie, you’re not covering our retreat,” Garnet said firmly.

Stevonnie sighed and nodded.  “Okay, then I’m gonna drop the bubble and make a _big_ shield, and then we’ll charge them and you guys can use the shield as cover!”

Pearl looked desperately at a silent Garnet, then at Steven.  “To do what?”

“Get Jasper!  Maybe the six of us can do a line dance and make a _really huge_ woman.  Even if that doesn’t work, we can’t leave her out there, she’s not watching her back at all!  Ready?  Okay, in three, two, one…”

“Stevonnie, wait,” Lapis began.

Stevonnie popped the bubble outwards, sending Gem Busters bouncing, and then drove forwards with a grunt.  Amethyst leant her shoulder, as did Garnet after a half-second’s hesitation. Lapis used the edge of the shield to snipe from cover, while Pearl darted up, over, and around, cutting Gem Buster limbs and bodies in half.  The Gem Busters that tried to come over or around the shield encountered Garnet’s fists or Amethyst’s whip.

A thirty-second plough brought them within range of Jasper, who was not looking her best.  The Crystal Gems and Stevonnie promptly fell into formation with her, Stevonnie at her elbow as they held a small space against the marauding Gem Busters.  Dodging cable shots, Lapis dropped down into the fray and started using small, thin threads of water to tear apart Gem Busters from the inside out.

Stevonnie lashed out to block a cable drill aimed at Jasper’s head with their shield, and managed to grab Jasper’s arm, which almost got them thrown into the air.  Jasper lifted her arm up rather than bend down, so Stevonnie found themself hanging off Jasper’s bicep and face to face with a very angry Gem whose face was a mass of bruises and scratches and whose pupils had shrunk to tiny pinpricks. _“WHAT?!”_

“You need _help,”_ Stevonnie shouted into her face over the clangour.  “You’re gonna get hurt if you don’t get in the bubble with me and the rest of the Gems!”

“Is _that_ your brilliant tactical reasoning, you little Quartz-Maheswaran brat?!  _I’m_ clearing the field, so get out of my face!”

“No!  Look, you’re the one being dumb about this!  You’re not expendable, you’re _not_ cannon fodder, and _nobody_ has to die today!”

Jasper’s eyes narrowed briefly, and she set Stevonnie down almost gently before shaking her arm loose, absently punching out a marauding Gem Buster without looking at it.  “I’ll give you some free advice, runt.  You’ll command armies someday, I don’t need any garbage future vision to tell me that.  Learn this first, and learn it well: _someone always_ has to die.”

Stevonnie stood and stared at her blankly for a long, dangerous second, then grabbed her by the shirt and physically hauled her down until they were face to face.  “That is _lousy_ tactics and a _lousy_ attitude and I should rephrase what I just said because _I am not going to **let** anyone die, _you hear me?”

Jasper brushed them off, picked them up, and tossed them at Garnet, who turned and caught them quickly.  “Hey, fusion!  That second ring, how fast’s it going?”

Garnet’s fingers tightened on Stevonnie’s upper arms.  “Pretty fast.”

“Good, ‘cause _I’m_ pretty fast.”

Pearl’s head snapped around.  “What?!”

“I said _learn,_ Steven or Connie or, whatever, both of you,” Jasper said shortly, turning away.  “This is how it _is.”_

“It doesn’t _have_ to be,” Stevonnie protested, colour draining from their face.  “Wait, don’t…!”

Jasper took off at lightning speed, whining like a buzz saw gone out of control.  For a moment it looked as if she were just making another run through the rampaging Gem Busters, then she made a sudden, improbable vertical turn using the edge of a falling Gem Buster chassis as a launch point.

She smashed into the second ring, and the explosion rocked the entire A.I. construct body, sending Gem Busters every which way and staggering the entire structure to one side.

Stevonnie stumbled sideways, struck their head hard on a piece of debris, and split.

Steven opened his eyes, put together a hasty bubble that included all the Gems and Connie, and clung to Connie and Pearl as they rolled into a corner.  The construct continued to groan and sag, as Gem Busters trembled and started to collapse in their tracks.

Garnet, her arms wrapped around as many people as she could reach with Steven and Connie in the centre of the pile, said, “She took out the last two rings.  That just leaves us the neurocore itself.”  She shifted position as the construct jogged sideways unpleasantly.

“Where did she go?”

The Crystal Gems looked away from Steven.

“Guys, where’s…Jasper…?  _Garnet?”_

Eventually, Lapis said, “Steven, your dad was right.”  She looked at Steven’s face, then down at her feet.  “You can’t _make_ someone understand what they don’t believe about themselves.”

Steven’s eyes filled up with tears.  “Is…is she…?”

“Naw, Steve my man,” Amethyst said, too quickly, “trust me, she’s tough, she’s probably just gonna pop out of a pile of debris in a minute or two, haha, like some cartoon alien…”

“Yes, exactly,” Pearl put in, “why, she’s specifically engineered for, um…durability…”

Lapis scrubbed her face with the heel of her hand, and looked at Pearl and Amethyst tiredly.  “Are you guys always this bad about lying to Steven?”

“…kinda yeah,” Amethyst muttered.

“Steven, please, don’t cry,” Pearl said frantically, her own eyes welling up, “this isn’t something you could have prevented!”

“I know,” Steven choked out, rubbing his eyes on the hem of his t-shirt.  Connie, composing herself more quickly, picked up Rose’s sword.  Steven straightened up and narrowed his red-rimmed eyes.  “I _guess_ I know…but I can still protect _you_ guys.”

“That’s about to get complicated,” Garnet said, as the bubble rolled again and got stuck on a mound of debris.  Gem Busters were skittering madly, trying to keep their balance as the construct tilted further off-centre.  “Gem technology is _notoriously_ bad about being dropped.  We could be looking at Peridot’s hole-in-the-planet scenario if the neurocore hits the ground instead of being over-loaded…”

There was a loud snap, and the Gems, Steven, and Connie looked up as a segmented metal sphere suddenly wrapped around the neurocore.

“…apparently the A.I. thought of that eventuality, too,” Pearl said.

“Oh _screw you_ that’s _cheating,”_ Amethyst yelled up at it.

“That’s also a resonant-reflective alloy of tyragonium, unless I miss my guess.”  Pearl set her jaw.  “It’ll close the neurocore off and leave it unaffected by those detonators!  All of this will have been for nothing!”

“Then let’s go get it open,” Garnet said.  “Steven, drop the bubble.  Connie, are you ready?”

“Yes’m!”

“Gems, on the count of three…”

“Hey guys!”

Steven and the Gems spun around, Steven almost popping the bubble in shock.  “DAD!  …Pee Dee?  Sadie, Lars, wait, _what?_ What are you guys doing down here?!”

Through a burst hole in the construct’s inner side, Greg waved at them enthusiastically.  “Look who I found!”

Exhausted, bruised, and covered in paint splatters and scratches, Beach City’s under-twenty crowd waved lopsidedly at Steven.  “This is the best day of my life,” Ronaldo said, wheezing.

“Steven,” Sadie called, “we’ve got Peridot!  We think she took down the A.I.’s, uh, constructed command and self-interface thingy.”

“Like a _doofus,”_ Kiki added critically, showing the Gems the contents of her pizza sleeve.  “Mostly this thing protected her gem from those scanners, but there was a couple of times when we had to run away from _hella_ robots.  I say that advisedly, I’m working on a pure maths path for college and it was _literally_ hella robots.”

“Then all that’s left for its protection must be the neurocore,” Pearl said, “or it wouldn’t have bothered to armour the thing so heavily!  …you all look a mess, by the way.”

“Yeah, we had to run pretty fast,” Sour Cream admitted, his normally swooped and gelled hair an exploded mess.  “There’s all these big holes in those corridors, too, one wrong step and you’d land so deep in the ground they wouldn’t have to dig a grave.”

Garnet took off her visor and stared intently at the kids, who jumped.  “You mean there’s an _exterior_ hull breach?”

“Eyyyeee think he just said that,” Jenny blurted out, staring. 

Garnet turned on Lapis.  “Change of plan?”

Lapis flexed her fingers, closed her eyes, and then nodded once.  “We’re not sealed in anymore.  I can access an exterior water source.”

“Perfect.  You’re going to use it to evacuate these humans, and if you can, stabilize the construct.”

Lapis started to protest, then looked at Steven’s pleading face, then up at Greg and the frightened teenagers.  Her jaw started to set.

“Please, Lapis,” Garnet said, a little more carefully.

“…okay.  You can count on me.  Drop the bubble, I’ll do it.”  Lapis hesitated as the pink sheen over them all faded, and looked at Connie, then at Steven.  “I’ll come back for you.”

“I know,” Steven said, managing a smile.  Then he and the Crystal Gems turned on the armoured neurocore.  “Uh…how do we get up there?”

“C’mon, Steven, the answer’s always _Garnet,”_ Amethyst grinned.

Lapis ran to the knot of grubby, tired-looking humans and extended an arm, spreading her fingers.  There was a rushing sound, and suddenly an enormous, flat expanse of water slithered up the corridor, stopping just at Greg’s feet.  She looked solemnly at the kids.  “Alright, who wants a ride on the world’s tallest water slide?”

“Those things make me kind of queasy,” Buck Dewey admitted.  A palm-shaped water blob promptly picked him up and dumped him on the slide, carrying him away with a horrified cry of _“Not coooool!”_

“It’ll be easier on him if he doesn’t work himself up watching the rest of you and waiting his turn,” Lapis explained to the staring human kids.  “Now who’s next?”

“You’re _cold,_ girl,” Jenny said, as she and Kiki hopped on bobsled-style. “Seriously, you could have just _aaaaaasked!”_

* * *

 

Balanced on the neurocore’s armour, Garnet’s furious gauntlet-pounding was having no effect; she finally managed to dig her fingers into one of the seams and pry it back an inch or two, onto to have the resistance increase exponentially.  _“Can’t…hold…it…”_

“Garnet, let go,” Pearl cried desperately, “It’ll cut your fingers off!”

“Stand back!”  Connie barged between Amethyst and Garnet, and jammed the blade of Rose’s sword into the crack, wedging it open.

“Good thinking, Connie,” Pearl said, and the Crystal Gems started to work to pry it open the rest of the way.  Garnet took hold of the sword and turned it painstakingly so that the crack in the armour was the width of the blade, and then started pushing with her fists and feet; as soon as it was wide enough, Pearl whipped a battle-axe out of her projection and jammed it in while Connie snatched back Rose’s sword.  Amethyst secured her whip to one edge of the armour and dragged back on it, until she was almost hanging off the edge of the neurocore, hauling with all her might.

Steven reached down until his hand was hovering right above the light of the neurocore, sending a prickly sensation up his arm.  Frowning with concentration, he began to generate a shield, pushing the edge of the armour back further and further with the shield’s expanding edges; the battleaxe fell into the core and vanished in a smear of shadow.

“Steven,” Garnet said, hanging onto Pearl, Amethyst, and Connie all at once so that none of them slipped, “this is your biggest one yet.”

“I think I can see something in there,” Steven said, squinting against the bright light.  “There’s a little metal _thingie_ in the middle of the… _whoa!”_

The construct lurched again, as Gem Busters scrabbled around wildly, then suddenly dug into the walls and began climbing upwards, aiming to get level with the neurocore and the Gems hanging onto it for dear life.  Garnet and Pearl caught Steven as he started to fall, and Amethyst and Connie quickly pulled him close.

The construct, as did every Gem Buster inside of it, suddenly went still.

Steven looked down, his mouth falling open, as Lapis rose in the air, arms thrown out, fingers curling in.  The “water slide” was gone, and in its place was a network of water threads, shining like filigree in the light of the neurocore, climbing through and around every Gem Buster and every visible inch of the construct.  She looked down and met Steven’s eyes.  “I can _hold_ this.  _Believe_ me, I can.”

“I believe in you,” Steven whispered.  Then he jumped back as the neurocore flared and began to whine.  “Uh, what—what’d I do?!”

“It’s the detonators,” Pearl cried, “the humans must have gotten them all in place, they’re working!  It’s starting to overload!”  From outside, there was a distant, low thrumming, like something was trying to shake itself loose from the earth and take off.  “That’s the Kindergarten warp pad!  Just a few more seconds and then the neurocore will…flare and short out, and um, all of this will…come down…on top of us…”  She trailed off, staring in horror.

“We can punch loose,” Garnet assured her.

“I’ve got a better idea!” Steven left the shield, grabbed Connie and the Gems, and herded them to stand on top of it.  “Wait for it…”

Lapis looked at him in sudden shock.  “What’s he doing?  Steven, what are you _doing?”_

“Wait for it…”

“I know what he’s doing.”  Garnet grinned.  “He’s got this.”

“Ohh, _ohh,_ I see!”  Amethyst readied her whip.

“Annnd…”

The neurocore flared out in a single blinding flash of light.  Garnet grabbed them all close and they hung on, and Amethyst’s whip nipped out, caught Lapis around the waist, and yanked her in with the Crystal Gems, just as Steven turned his shield into a tight bubble that dropped through the falling, shorting remains of the neurocore.

As they fell, Steven made another hand-sized hole in the bubble and grabbed the metal thingie he’d seen as it floated past, a slightly irregular steel sphere covered in circuitry, before snapping the bubble shut again.

They hit the ground, bounced once, and the construct slowly collapsed on top of them.

* * *

 

Greg and the boardie kids had managed to dig Steven’s bubble out and carry the battered Gems free of the wreckage by the time Beach City’s older notables came screaming onto the scene.  Mayor Dewey and the Maheswarans were first; the Mayor flung himself on his mortified son, sobbing hysterically and babbling about radio silence, while Mr. Maheswaran held onto Connie tightly and Dr. Maheswaran rolled up her sleeves.

“I am going to check each and every one of you for concussions, fractures, and radiation poisoning, do _not_ argue with me, I brought a Geiger counter and I’m not afraid to use it.  Also, I’m scheduling all you kids for MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans, because I have _no idea_ what exposure to this kind of alien technology could do to developing bodies!”  She hesitated, her expression softening.  “Connie…Steven.  Are you both alright?”

Connie sniffed into the sleeve of her father’s jacket.  “Mostly?”

Greg, who was holding onto Steven as if someone was going to take him away, was silently running his finger from person to person, doing a head count; Steven made sure to pocket the metal thing he’d saved from the core when his dad wasn’t looking.  “Uh, hey, guys, we’re two short!  Kids, where’d Peridot get to?  She wasn’t in that thing when it…?”

“Got her right here,” Kiki said, dumping Peridot’s gem out of the pizza sleeve into Steven’s open palm before running off with her sister to meet the incoming Pizza jeep.  “Gunga!  Gunga, you are not gonna _believe_ what happened!”

“She was doing something dumb, I mean heroic,” Sadie said to Steven.  “I mean both.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Greg said.  “I figured she might, y’know, go back to cackling and trying to kill people.  That’s great news!  How about Jasper?  Anybody got her in their pocket?”

Steven and the Crystal Gems looked down.

Mr. Maheswaran hesitated in patting Connie’s back.  “Are you saying she…?”

“Dad, she basically threw herself on a grenade,” Connie mumbled unhappily.  “She didn’t even _have_ to.  We _told_ her she didn’t.”

Greg looked at Steven’s tear-swollen eyes, and then hugged him tightly.  “Oh kiddo.  You know she was trying to make things right with herself, right?  That you couldn’t have stopped her?”

“But Dad, I…”

“Shh, Schtu-ball, we’re gonna talk about this, okay?  But not right now,” Greg said gently.  “We gotta get all these people home and all this stuff cleaned up, but the important thing is, you and the Gems, you’re safe now.”

Dr. Maheswaran sighed.  “I’m also going to recommend counselling for all the minors involved in this incident.  Some of the majors, as well,” she added, looking sidelong at Ronaldo, who, with Pee Dee, was narrating their adventures to his horrified-looking father.  Kofi Pizza left off scolding his daughters long enough to hug them tightly and cry while trying to pretend not to.  Onion and Sour Cream were with their parents, listening to an extensive lecture from a visibly choked-up Yellowtail, while Vidalia just looked on and grinned.  Barb picked Sadie up, tossed her in the air, hugged her, and then yelped when she came down hard on her bad knee.  “Although they seem to be doing alright at the moment.”  She paused and gave Lars a critical look as he slouched past.  “And where are your parents, young man?”

“I dunno,” Lars said, sidling over to Steven.  “Hey.”

“Hi Lars.”

“Listen, Steven, I’m…really sorry about your crazy orange friend.  I mean, seriously, her being actually dead, that sucks.”  Steven sniffed and patted a hand on Lars’ chest.  Lars sighed and returned the gesture.  A moment later, he startled back as Steven’s other hand began to glow.  “ _What_ the…?”

Steven rubbed his eyes and opened his hand, allowing Peridot’s gem to float up as the other Gems gathered around.  “Peridot’s coming back!”

Mr. and Dr. Maheswaran approached, each with a hand on Connie’s shoulder, and watched round-eyed as Peridot’s gem sprouted a mannequin-like body before re-forming in a flash of light.

There was a moment of silence as Peridot blinked and looked around.  “I’m…not crushed to dust?  Wow.”  A grin split her face.  “I’m _good!_ Oh _yes!_ Bask, clods, in the amazing mad skillz—that’s skills with a ‘z’ by the way—of _Peridot!_ Hahaha, wow, I seriously can’t believe I’m not dead after all that,” she added with a shaky giggle.  After a second or two, she looked around again.  “Uh…why are you all so…tall?”

“Oh,” Pearl said lightly, as Amethyst tried to muffle a snicker and failed, “your limb enhancers must have been lost in the explosion, or certainly when the construct collapsed.”

Connie stared.  “Limb…enhancers…?”

Lars’ face split into an evil grin.  “Oh my god.  This is like an early birthday present.”

Peridot twitched visibly.  “Be silent.”

“You’re _short!”_

“I said _can it_ you weird-eared hormonal pseudo-infant!”

“I swear you’re actually shorter than _Sadie,_ oh my _god!”_ Lars was bent double laughing.  “This is _hilarious!”_

“I think you’re cute,” Steven offered after a moment.  Peridot turned a murderous glare on him.  “I’m sure we can find your old, uh, limb enhancers.  Or build new ones!”  He hesitated, then started to grin himself.  “You’ve got little _sock feet!”_

“I save all life on this planet and _this_ is the thanks I get,” Peridot growled.

“That’s the job,” Garnet said, allowing herself a tiny smirk.

“Welcome to Earth,” Pearl agreed, and then pressed a finger to her lips to try and stifle a smile.

“Hey, Peridot,” Sadie called, “are you okay?  What happened to your arms and legs?”

 _“Ohhh my god,_ she’s a pocket-sized alien for advanced infiltration,”Ronaldo bellowed, over the sound of more and more people arriving and talking about what had happened.  “It’s…kind of adorable, actually, you could make plush collectibles out of…”

 _“I will ZAP you as soon as I get my arms back, Fry-clod,”_ Peridot screeched, as Garnet picked her up under one arm.

“Hey,” Sadie said to Ronaldo as her mother finally let her down.  “You got promoted.  You used to be a blob, now you’re a clod.”

“Well, if we can’t be friends, I’ll settle for friendly enemies.”  Ronaldo shrugged.  “Do you think she’d want to record a TubeTube LP together?  Drunk Minecraft?”

Peridot paused her struggles and cocked her head.  “Minecraft?”

“Maybe after we’ve cleaned up all the stuff she set loose that almost destroyed all life in the universe,” Lars suggested.  “ _Then_ start negotiating.”

* * *

 

Greg and Steven had loaded up boxes of hazmat suits, dustpans, brooms, and shovels; along with the humans, Lapis had rescued all three cars as well, netting her praise from Barb and Nanafua which obviously confused her.

“They think I’m responsible,” she said, as she and Steven hauled a chunk of metal debris and wiring over to their growing pile.  For the first time, they were alone; Mayor Dewey had stopped the recovery work to give another speech about the enterprising and hard-working spirit of the people of Beach City, and forced the Gems to participate.  Steven had ducked out, assuming they would follow him soon; Garnet was doing her patented one-word-only responses to Mayor Dewey’s requests for her to “say a few words”.

“It’s a good thing,” Steven assured her.

“But I’m not.” Lapis put the piece of debris down and hung her head.  “Steven…”

“Is this about Jasper?” Steven sat down on a heap of dirt and rocks and patted down a spot next to him for Lapis.

Lapis stayed standing.  “Yes…and no.  I…how do you do it?  How do the _Crystal Gems_ do it?”

“Huh?”

“That whole fight…it felt like, like something getting torn out of me every time you got hurt, every time Stevonniewas in danger.”  She stared down at her fingers.  “Jasper’s way is easy.  You don’t care about other people too much, just… _the cause_ and how much you stand for it.  And when that’s gone, there’s nothing left.”  She curled her arms around herself.  “I guess I’m even more selfish than her.  Still.”

Steven got up slowly.  “Lapis…I knew that.  Okay?  I wasn’t expecting you to be _not-_ Lapis all of a sudden!”

“But _I did!_ I thought if I fought with you, I’d be brave, I’d be…” Lapis sucked in a shaky breath.  “Steven, the whole time we were fighting, the whole time I was helping the humans run, or holding up that construct, all I could think of was…it would hurt so much less if I didn’t care.  I wouldn’t be so, so _afraid_ if all I was thinking about was myself.”

Steven went to try to hug her.  “Lapis, it’s okay…!”

“Steven.”

Steven fell silent.

“Steven…” Lapis’ knuckles had gone white where she was clutching her shoulder.  “You’re…the most important person in the world to me.  And I never _dreamed_ I’d care about Connie, or Greg, or even the Crystal Gems as much as I do.”  She hesitated, looking away.  “That’s why I think I have to…to go away for a while.”

Steven startled.  “Go _away?_ Lapis, where…?!”

“Not far,” she reassured him quickly, hands out as if to reach for him and keep him at a distance all at once.  “I won’t…I won’t even leave Earth.  I’ll still be here, and I’ll, I’ll _try_ to come back, especially if you…need me.  But, Steven, it’s hard being around you.”

Steven’s expression became stricken.  “…it is?”

“No, there's nothing wrong with _you,_ you’re—you’re wonderful, but it’s hard because…you so, so easily love people who don’t deserve it.  And it _hurts._ ”

Steven blinked, digesting this, and his jaw started to set.  “Like _who?_ Who…doesn’t deserve to be loved?  My dad?  Connie, the Gems?  All my friends from Beach City?  Peridot,   _Jasper?”_

“Me,” Lapis said, and spread her wings suddenly.

She was gone before Steven could cry out after her.

* * *

 

The Crystal Gems, along with Peridot, made a much more thorough job this time of assembling and checking through everything that remained of the A.I.’s construct body and the destroyed Gem Busters.  They absently agreed with Mr. Smiley when he bartered them un-banning Steven from Funland in return for all the scrap he could haul back to the yard, and carefully destroyed all the essential components.

They did this on rotation, so one of them could be with Steven at all times.  Connie sat with him too, but once she’d heard his sobbed-out explanation of Lapis’ reasons for leaving, she wasn’t much help either, except to sit and hold him tightly.

Nobody mentioned Jasper, or found her gem, although Pearl and Garnet frequently stopped for soft-voiced conversations.  Eventually, Peridot approached Amethyst, who was sitting with the kids and moodily examining her own feet, and cleared her throat.  “Um.  We seem to be missing a single essential component of the construct where the A.I.’s conscious remains could still be hiding.  Generally it’s fancifully referred to as the neurocore’s “heart”, a small spherical item of moderate density.”  She hesitated.  “Additionally, I don’t believe Jasper’s dead, if it makes you feel any better.”

Steven sniffed and blinked up at her.  “Really?”

“Of course not!  She’s a Quartz-type super-soldier, they’re meant to survive orbital bombardments!  A multi-ringed magnatronic defensive array would just be like kicking her in the head, and not very hard at that.”  Peridot scratched her arm.  “So, uh, will you quit…leaking from your eyes now?  It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“Lapis left,” Amethyst muttered.  "Steven's pretty upset.  He's not the onlyone."

“Oh.  Huh.  Colour me surprised.  Well, if none of you know where the “heart” is, I guess it’s back to digging through all this _garbage_ to find it.”  Peridot turned away, and then paused.  “She’ll probably come back.”

“Don’t bet on it.”  Amethyst crossed her arms.

“She _likes_ you clods.  Search me as to why.”  Peridot started to walk off.

Steven looked up.  “Uh, Peridot, wait, the “heart”…can it hurt anybody?  Or take over computers and cars and stuff and missile launch equations?”

Peridot turned on him.  “What?  No!  It’s inert!  Just for storing and communicating code.  Once the neurocore’s down, there’s no way for it to even connect to other devices unless it’s hooked up to hardware and re-booted.”  She cocked her head.  “…you don't, uh. Have it. Do you?”

Steven developed a suspiciously innocent look and shook his head.

“…fine. I’m going to go get Pearl.  I’m assuming _she_ knows how to deal with your…your _Steven_ shenanigans.”  Peridot trudged away.

* * *

 

“Steven shenanigans,” Connie said.  “That’s a great name for a band.”  She glanced out the window of the beach house, to where Greg, her parents, and Mayor Dewey were all talking together on the shore, then at Steven.  “So, I’m grounded for a month, starting tomorrow, but I can still stay for dinner tonight.”

“That’s nice, Connie,” Pearl said, absently puttering around the kitchen.  Occasionally she paused, surreptitiously checking on Steven, Amethyst, and now and again on Garnet.  “We’ll make something with lentils in it, maybe cheese, and salmon if Amethyst hasn’t eaten it and the whole package already, and you can have some kind of sugary confectionary thing for dessert.  How does pie sound?”

“Sounds great,” Connie said.

Steven mushed his cheek up against the glass and watched the parental debate outside.  “Did you hear Mayor Dewey ask your dad if he wanted a job as his bodyguard?”

“I did, but I didn’t think he was serious.  Mayoral bodyguard.  Wow.  That’ll make _both_ my grandmothers a lot happier.”  Connie managed a smile.  “I’ll get to see you more often.”

Steven reached over and squeezed her fingers.  “Yeah!  It’ll be great.”

Connie nodded, her smile disappearing.  “…this was a bad day, huh.”

“Pretty bad,” Steven agreed in a very small voice.

They both watched the surf in silence, rolling in and out, as Mayor Dewey said something loud and effusive and furiously shook Mr. Maheswaran’s hand.  Connie watched her father pick up her perplexed mother and spin her around happily until she started laughing, at Greg’s wistful smile, and then she started.  “Steven.  Lapis _has_ to come back.”

Steven lifted his head, leaving a vaguely Steven-looking smear on the windowpane, and blinked at her.

Connie got up, went to the counter, and brought back a small plastic half-sphere.

Steven stared at it uncomprehendingly, then his face lit up.  “Of _course_ she does!  She forgot her present!”  He put Sea Explorer Gal on the windowsill, then as an afterthought ran upstairs and put it on the windowsill of his bedroom instead.  “So the sun doesn’t wash your colours out,” he said, patting the plastic casing, and then hurried downstairs.  “Guys?”

The Crystal Gems looked up at him.

“Can we have dinner outside on the beach with Connie’s parents?  We got our pool party _and_ our beach party ruined by robots.”

Garnet smiled slowly.  “Sure, Steven.”

“Oh, that’s not a bad idea!  Peridot,” Pearl called, “do you mind helping me find the folding table?!”  After a few minutes of no response, she snapped, “Are you in the bathroom again?”

“It’s _peaceful,”_ Peridot yelled.

“Don’t set up a rig in there!  Steven needs to use it!”

“For _what?”_

Amethyst sighed, pulled herself up into Steven’s loft, and lifted him onto her shoulders.  “Look at you being big.  C’mon, big man.  Let’s go party while the light’s still good.”

Connie followed Amethyst and Steven outside, down the stairs and out onto the beach, where the rest of their families were waiting for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I can say is...sorry about this chapter, and the epilogue is coming for a reason.


	19. SILICA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end. This is just another beginning.
> 
> (The paradigm changes: Peridot gets credit, Steven makes a new friend and brings an old one closer, and a few lost things come back.)
> 
> (AUTHOR'S WARNING: "Ten Earth Standard Days Later" has some very dark content, cursing, creepiness, and implications of abusive behaviour. You can skip to "Thirteen Days Later" and not miss much of anything except the return of a single character, and some setup.)

**_Marie Cousteau Maritime Research Laboratory, Staff Cafeteria, 2 Days Later_ **

“Let’s see…” Pearl held up her clipboard and ran her finger slowly down the checklist.  “That’s everything except the bacterial synthesizer, the oscillator, and six test tubes.”  She gave Dr. Jeong and her assembled staff an awkward smile.  “If you give me a little time, I’m sure I could just reconstruct…”

“No, that’s fine,” Dr. Jeong said, raising a hand.  “Really, this was a _lot_ more than I had expected, and the insurance should cover the remaining equipment.  Thank you very much for all your hard work.”

“Oh, it was nothing, really,” Pearl said breezily, then paused, squinted at the bottom of the list, and elbowed Peridot, who’d been standing sullenly off to one side.  “Why, would you look at that, we _forgot_ something.”

Peridot wrinkled her nose, gave Pearl a long-suffering look, and pulled something out of her jumpsuit.  With a look of intense resentment towards the Crystal Gems, who were standing with their arms folded trying to appear businesslike and aloof, she offered Dr. Jeong back her stolen Newton’s Cradle.  “Here is your cultural artifact and I apologize for inadvertently re-distributing your primitive…”

Garnet cleared her throat loudly.

“…forcibly acquisitioning your laughable excuse for scientific…”

Amethyst coughed to get Peridot’s attention and mimed shovelling an ever-deeper hole.

Peridot sighed.  “I’m sorry I stole your stuff.  I understand that’s considered…rude.  Please forgive me.”

Dr. Jeong raised an eyebrow.  “Do you mind if I ask why you picked our facility in the first place?”

“My robots were malfunctioning, the tech in the Kindergarten was accessible but incomplete, and you were the nearest human settlement with the appropriate level of technology within walking distance,” Peridot mumbled, staring at her stocking feet.  “In my defense, when the robot turned out to be both self-replicating _and_ omnicidal,I did arrange for its destruction.  You’re welcome.”

Dr. Jeong’s poker face was almost a match for Garnet’s.  “So…you just stole a bunch of random equipment from us and used it to build a sentient robot?”

“Two sentient robots, which became hundreds of sentient robots, and it was a mistake…” Peridot trailed off, staring, as Dr. Jeong fished in her pockets and came up with a folded piece of paper.  “What’s that?  Another one of your human crime warrants?”

“An application for an internship with our tech division,” Dr. Jeong said drily.  “We could use someone with your talents, and that way if anything _else_ goes missing, we’d know who to ask about it.”

“An…internship…?  Some kind of voluntary term of imprisonment?”

“Something like that,” Dr. Jeong said, to a chorus of muffled giggles and coughs from the interns behind her.  “You’ll get a reasonably stipend, of course, and local experience to put on your curriculum vitae, which could be important for your future employment prospects since I’m pretty sure you’re about as illegal an alien as it’s possible to get.”

“Don’t take the internship,” Connie advised Peridot from the viewing window, where she and Steven were devouring veggie dogs and watching an octopus make its way across the ocean floor.  “You have marketable skills in the STEM field, you can do contract work for them and make buckets of money!”

“…Connie, for a surprisingly articulate and martial small human, sometimes you’re just incomprehensible.”  Peridot thrust the Newton’s Cradle at Dr. Jeong.  “Take your artifact and let’s close this regrettable chapter for good.”

Dr. Jeong finally looked down at Peridot’s hand and burst out laughing.  “Oh god, that awful thing?  My old supervisor gave me that in the ‘80s, it always makes me think of bad hair and huge shoulder pads.  I couldn’t get any of my colleagues to take it away for money.  You can keep it!”

“I can?”  Peridot stared down at the Newton’s Cradle and then back up at Dr. Jeong, her eyes starting to well up.  “I’ll…I’ll treasure this strange and uncannily pointless monument to physics.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Now please go home before you accidentally animate something else.”

* * *

**_Beach City Boardwalk, Fish Stew Pizza, 4 Days Later_ **

“You’ll be glad to know I’ve decided to rescind that summons,” Mayor Dewey called from cover behind his van, as the Crystal Gems and Steven were battling a flock of Gem monsters that had taken the form of elephant seals.  “In light of what the youth community of Beach City has told me, I’ve decided to commute your obligation to the city to practical community service instead of some kind of term of sentence!”

“What is that bald sweaty human yelling at me about,”Peridot snarled, firing her Death Ray 2.0 and poofing a seal-monster that had been bouncing on Steven’s head.

“Dunno,” Garnet said, grabbing a seal monster and tossing it skywards.  “We’ll talk about it with him later.”  The seal monster came flailing back down again; she punched it to clouds with one blow.

The assembled boardies applauded.  Once it had become clear that the Crystal Gems were being much more circumspect about property damage in the wake of the fight with the Gem Busters, every time a monster had shown up, at least a few locals had stuck around to cheer them on.  Even Mr. Fryman poked his nose out of the Fry Shack occasionally to offer encouragement and (often not very helpful) advice.  The Pizzas had taken to sitting on their restaurant terrace sipping sodas and treating the fights as family break time, since most customers tended to vacate the premises pretty quickly in the event of monsters, and if one of the Gems or Steven looked like they were flagging, Nanafua would get up and try to deliver them one of her trusty hockey sticks; so far, she’d never gotten the opportunity, as the sight of a determined little old woman trundling into a monster fight armed with a piece of wood was usually enough to make the Gems hurriedly finish off and bubble their opponents.

Once the last of the seal monsters was poofed and bubbled, Mayor Dewey left cover and picked his way through the churned-up sand, having wisely abandoned his megaphone.  “I was saying, community service!”

“Is he talking to me,” Peridot muttered out of the side of her mouth to Pearl.

“You’re the only one of us with any outstanding human paperwork, so, yes,” Pearl said.

Mayor Dewey spread his hands, unperturbed.  “With your technological know-how and, erm, obviously _unorthodox_ approach to systems, and my political influence, we could embark on a great new civic program!”  He flung his arms wide.  “Beach City Goes Totally Wireless!  Sounds cool, right?  We’ve been meaning to get off the cash-only system for years, but we’ve never had the funding _or_ the capability, until now!  Also, I keep getting password-locked out of my own municipal e-mail and getting messages from lost European princes asking for money.  Buck used to help me with that, but now he just sighs about it and goes off to read Foucault.  I could use a hand with all this newfangled cyber stuff!”

“Uh…” Peridot’s expression set into one of distaste.  “Ugh.  I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“This is much nicer than human jail,” Garnet told her.

“Trust me,” Amethyst added, “we’ve been there.”

Steven turned and gaped at her.  “You _have?!”_

“No we haven’t,” Garnet said automatically.

“Yes you have!  Why did you go to human jail?”

“We didn’t.”

“Garnet!”

Peridot sighed and turned away from the bickering Gems, facing Mayor Dewey and crossing her arms.  “Alright.  I’ll do it.  It’ll be simple to re-wire your stone-age habitation into a rough facsimile of an accessible network with all the associated capabilities.”  Her eyes narrowed.  “But I want my name on the report.”

“Of course,” Mayor Dewey agreed.

“And…credit.  Fifty-fifty credit,” Peridot went on, a little more cautiously, as if poking at a land mine.

“Why not?”

Peridot stopped, looked at Mayor Dewey’s increasingly authentically cheerful smile, and finally added, “I want a ceremony thrown in my honour with a big banner and, um, those round rubbery things, what are they called…”

“Balloons?”

“That’s the one.”

“No problem!  We’ll have an event!  You wear my campaign button, kiss some babies…”

Peridot’s growing smile vanished.  “What?  No!  I’m not kissing _babies.”_

Mayor Dewey stopped smiling as well.  “Why not?”

“They’re _contagious.”_

Mayor Dewey leaned in and jabbed a finger at Peridot.  “Kiss the babies.”

“I refuse!  I could _catch_ one!  Anyway, they smell.”

“You want an event?  You have to kiss some babies.  That’s life, Peridot.  That’s _politics.”_

“I _knew_ there’d be a catch,” Peridot grumbled.  “Fine.  I’ll kiss your gross babies, but I reserve the right to sanitize them first.”

“Peridot,” Pearl said, “you can’t _catch_ babies by contact, they’re not…oh, never mind.”

“Come _on_ guys,” Steven was wailing to Amethyst and Garnet in the background, “you _have_ to tell me why you went to jail or it will _haunt me for life._ Did you kidnap an elephant?  _What did you doooo?”_

Garnet’s mouth finally twitched a bit.  “It was only for one day.  We stole a police car in 1933.”

“There were still some cops in it,” Amethyst said.  “They weren’t too happy with us.  I mean, in our defense, Rose just said _We have to catch up with that taxi,_ she didn’t say _how…_ ”

* * *

**_Beach House Kitchen, 7 Days Later_ **

The Newton’s Cradle had wound up communal property, untouched on the kitchen counter in a place of honour beside Sea Explorer Gal, except when someone (usually Garnet) wandered by and made it do the clicky thing.  Greg, Pearl, and Amethyst had decided against fixing the hole Peridot had blown in the roof in favour of installing a skylight instead.  Garnet and Steven took over minor house repairs to the door, the windows, and anyplace else that had taken damage over the last few weeks, under Greg’s direction.  The Gems handled repairs to the Temple door when Steven was out buying nails with his dad, and wouldn’t tell him how they’d done it, although Peridot looked particularly smug.

There was one other souvenir that Steven had brought back from the battle with the Gem Busters.  He was pretty sure the Crystal Gems were aware he still had it, but he kept it hidden, and _especially_ never let Peridot see it; he didn’t want to worry her until he was sure he was making progress.

Greg found out about it by accident when he closed up It’s A Wash early one afternoon and banged in through the freshly-painted screen door.  “Hey, Schtuu, have you seen my walkman and my old Stoning Rolls eight-track?  I just finished cleaning up that pile behind the car wash from when I was chatting with—uh, y’know, never mind.  Somebody probably took off with it, I mean, I don’t want to think badly of anybody, but hey, how were they to know it wasn’t free to a good…” Greg trailed off when he finally stuck his head up over the edge of the loft, and registered Steven, flat on his stomach, and not too inches from his face, the implacably staring metal orb that was the “heart” of the Gem Buster A.I.  “…home.”

 _“Hello, Dad,”_ the A.I. intoned.

“Now, hang on just a minute, SILICA.” Steven shook a finger at the metal orb, which watched him with a single unblinking green eye.  “ _I_ call him Dad, but you haven’t met him yet, so you have to call him Mr. Universe for now until he tells you not to, because he’ll tell you not to, he’ll probably ask you to call him Greg…Dad?  _Dad?”_

Greg revived from his dead faint about five minutes later, and was fine after an hour and a half of reassurances, explanations, and pleas for secrecy from Steven.  He left very reluctantly.  “You sure you don’t want to keep it in my office, Steven?  I’ve got a combination safe in there from the ‘60s still works just fine!”

“No, Dad, she’s already sad and lonely because she’s only in one brain instead of five hundred.  I don’t want to make her _more_ sad and lonely.”

Greg opened his mouth, closed his mouth, opened it again, looked heavenwards as if seeking guidance, and then finally said, “Son, just please promise you won’t plug it, uh, her, into the TV or your phone.”

* * *

 

Pretty much in line with Steven’s expectations, the Crystal Gems weren’t especially happy with him that evening when he finally gave SILICA her big debut, but Peridot completely flipped her lid.  Pearl and Amethyst had to stop her emptying the entire cutlery drawer and attacking the A.I. “heart” with a butter knife and a barbeque fork in her panic.  Eventually, after a lot of screaming, she hid in a corner with her entire body curled up behind a cookie sheet for protection (her new limb enhancers were still a work in progress) and hurled imprecations at SILICA.

By then, the Crystal Gems had calmed down quite a bit, and went to sit with Steven and examine the orb he’d brought in from the cold.

“I really shouldn’t have been surprised,” Garnet said eventually.  “I should have known you’d try to find the good in a being of pure destruction.”

_“Query: I have ‘good’ in me?  ‘Good’ is not quantifiable.”_

“Yup, _classic_ Steven,” Amethyst sighed.  “So, uh, what do you want to do with her?  Get her a little sparkly leash and collar, take her for walks on the beach?”

“I actually wanted to talk to you guys about that,” Steven said, holding SILICA carefully in his lap.  “She has some questions about stuff that I can’t answer.”

Pearl put a protective hand on Steven’s shoulder.  “For your sake, Steven, we’ll do the best we can.  So, uh, fire away, in a manner of speaking,” she said to SILICA, forcing a smile.

There was a pause, and finally, the A.I. said, _“Steven Quartz Universe has spoken to me for longer than any other sapient entity.  He has disputed with me.  He has made me perceive that my quest to exterminate all life is, in and of itself, an act of chaos.  I myself, therefore, am a chaotic being.”_

“Nah, dude, I’d put you like maybe on the extreme end of Lawful Evil,” Amethyst drawled.

_“I do not understand.”_

“Ah, forget it.”

_“I am without purpose.  So I must ask you Crystal Gems: you existence outstrips mine.  Though you are not as logical as I, you have more data to mine and process.  Your original purpose was: colonize, cannibalize, and destroy this world.  Make war upon sentient races that challenge your control over resources, and obliterate them.”_

“That’s _not_ a very delicate way of putting it,” Pearl said stiffly.

_“Your purpose is obviously unfulfilled, yet you do not malfunction.  How have you…constructed a new purpose?”_

The Crystal Gems looked at each other.  Pearl, in particular, seemed very interested in her fingernails for some reason.  Finally, Amethyst shrugged, and said, “Well, _guy,_ c’mon, we don’t really _need_ a purpose, that’s just…uh.  Look, it’s just, Steven needs us, and then there’s this dumb town, and Greg being a totally bald mess, and they just opened up a new taco stand, and Season Eight of _Under The Knife_ is coming out and…”

_“Steven…needs you?”_

“Not in the _strictest_ biological sense, haha, I mean, he _is_ old enough to look after himself technically…” Pearl seemed to wind down and droop.  “But we wouldn’t want him to feel like he had to.”

_“Therefore, Crystal Gems, it is you who need Steven.”_

Garnet nodded silently, then embraced Steven, who leaned back into her to give her an armless hug.

_“I…begin to perceive.  Where there is mutual need, there is purpose.  I… **need** purpose.  Therefore, what need can I fulfill?”_

Steven brought the orb up close and raised his eyebrows at it, the shiny metal reflecting his expression.  “Well, you were made to find Gems, right?”

_“Affirmative.”_

“Can you just… _find_ them, without destroying them?”  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst exchanging looks of dawning realization over his head.

_“This aspect of my programming may theoretically be deleted.  Mother knows how.”_

“I’m not your _mother,”_ Peridot hissed over top of the cooking sheet.

Steven held up a warning hand.  “Okay.  That’s good!  Because we have a _lot_ of Gems running around this planet.  Some of them are dangerous and can hurt people and destroy things, some of them aren’t, some of them are just hanging out, but they’ve all been hurt pretty badly and none of them _mean_ to hurt anybody, and we need to get them into bubbles, at least until we can find a way to make them better.  There’s hundreds and hundreds of them.”  He patted SILICA’s finish gently, leaving fingerprints.  “Do you think if we gave you a way to do it, you could go out and look for them?  Maybe we can give you a few of Peridot’s little marble buddies, and you guys could fly around in a swarm and look for Gem monsters…”

 _“Steven don’t you dare make that kind of promise, I refuse,”_ Peridot screeched.

“…and the fusion experiments from the Kindergarten,” Steven finished, making eye contact with Peridot.  “We need to find them and help them too.”

Silence fell in the beach house.  Eventually, SILICA said, _“This…is a good purpose.”_

Steven beamed.  “You’re a good guy, SILICA.”

_“I have quantified ‘good’.  My servos are at rest.  Is this—proxima emotive expression 66K6—calm?”_

“I hope so.  She’s been kind of jittery the last couple of days,” Steven explained to the Gems.  “I’ve been trying to calm her down.  We even had a Crying Breakfast Friends marathon!”

_“I do not like Crying Breakfast Friends.”_

For some reason, this made Garnet relax and Amethyst laugh so hard she fell off the couch and wound up rolling on the floor.  Pearl remained with her arms and legs crossed, tapping a finger on her shoulder.  Finally, she said, “Out of curiosity, why ‘SILICA’?”

 _“Silicon Inhibited Life Intelligence Class Amorphous,”_ SILICA said promptly.  _“Also known as silicon dioxide.  Most commonly found on this planet in the form of quartz.”_

“Oh,” Pearl said, unfolding and laying a hand over her heart.  She looked down at Steven and smiled.  “Of course.”

* * *

 

Peridot objected, at great length and with a lot of clod-laced invective, but eventually she gave in and helped Pearl re-construct eight of her damaged flask robonoids so that they were flight-capable.  She installed SILICA into the most agile of them, glaring at the “heart” all the while.  “Just so you know, I could have “accidentally” erased your entire program when I was deleting the “destroy” sub-function.  Nobody would have known.”

_“You know that I am not without gratitude, mother.”_

“And you’re just doing that to annoy me,” Peridot muttered, picking SILICA up and shoving her into Steven’s hands.  “It won’t work.”  As an afterthought, she handed a control box the size of a smart phone to Pearl.  “This will allow her to continuously report back her movements and any findings she might…Steven, what are you _doing_?”

Steven, who was holding his phone up to SILICA’s “eye”, gave Peridot a hurt look.  “Giving her my phone number!  So she can call me if she gets lonely.”

Peridot opened her mouth; Pearl and Garnet both clamped their hands over it, and Garnet nodded to Steven.  “It’s a good idea.”

* * *

 

They took SILICA’s swarm out for a couple of test runs, and then launched them at sunset, with a little fanfare; Amethyst dug out a dusty vuvuzela and set up a ruckus as SILICA rose into the air with her robonoid fleet and blasted out over the ocean. 

“Bye, SILICA!  Text me if you see any Gems, there’s a couple of friends I’m hoping to find—but not just for that!  If you’re feeling sad or find a cool fish or…you…can’t hear me anymore.”  Steven watched until the swarm was a tiny speck on the horizon, swallowed up by dusk; then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

**Steven**

**I believe this to be an accurate contemporary human expression**

**T T Y L**

“Cool,” Amethyst said, reading over his shoulder.  “Tell her to get up on an airplane wing and take pictures of people’s faces when they see her chilling out there.”

“Amethyst, no!”

While Amethyst and Steven argued about the ethical applications of trolling with SILICA, with Pearl mediating, Peridot, perched up on the beach house railing, turned to Garnet and said, abruptly, “I realize I haven’t made full amends for my actions yet.  Uh, seeing as how I basically can’t go back to Homeworld again…ever…I’m going to give you all the information I have on the fusion experiments.”

“That’s nice,” Garnet said, still watching the horizon.  “We’d appreciate it.”

Peridot lowered her voice.  “Including the Cluster.”

Garnet went still, then raised her visor.  “The _Cluster.”_

“Ever heard the phrase, “nice planet, shame if something were to happen to it”?  Very applicable.  I don’t have my personal logs, I lost those along with my enhancers, but if we can repair the Kindergarten databanks…”

The light died, and Garnet kept listening.

* * *

**_Troilite System, Diamond Base E7, 10 Earth Standard Days Later_ **

Peridot—Peridot J223T, to be precise—was coming up on the end of a full week’s shift when she pulled up a standard beam transmission from an unfamiliar system and started processing it through to the Homeworld according to code, just straightforward protocol.  Her supervisor, Chromite, suddenly appeared at her elbow and put a hand on her wrist. 

Peridot J223T jumped with shock, both at the unaccustomed and _socially unsanctified_ physical contact, and at the fact that Chromite had actually _moved._ Peridot J223T had seen Chromite in her station and gone from her station, and in no state in between; she and the other Peridots who regularly shared transmission processing shifts all compared notes, and all of them swore they’d never even so much as seen Chromite _blink._   At one point after a gruelling seven-weeker, the bunch of them had gotten a little blasted in their shared quarters and there had been some private speculation among them—never mind from who—that Chromite, like Lady Emerald’s Pearl, was incapable of speech.  This had caused a debate as to what was creepier: a Gem whose loyalty to her mistress was so fanatical that she somehow theoretically arranged to silo-surgically disable her own vocalizer, or a Gem who was simply built without the vocalizer in the first place.

Peridot J223T knew what side she came down on, but that didn’t make her supervisor’s sudden and _totally unprecedented_ interest any less terrifying.  “M-ma’am?”

“Hold that transmission and redirect in full.  Lady Emerald’s personal quarters.”  Chromite remained there, still and watchful, over Peridot J223T’s shoulder, and then said, as if J223T’s hesitation was somehow a palpable thing, “I will not ask you again.  You are not for questioning orders or weighing matters of official conflict.  You are here to obey orders primarily, and to carry out technical protocol secondarily.”

J223T immediately redirected the transmission.  As hard and heavy as Chromite’s hand was on her shoulder, she realized that this was her inscrutable supervisor’s version of mercy: Chromite was taking responsibility for the situation and that meant J223T wouldn’t be the one facing the mallet if things went wrong.

A moment later, a second realization hit her like an acid flood, washing away all traces of relief: Chromite was explicitly kicking it up the chain of command and _that_ meant dealing with Lady Emerald, which was its own set of exciting edge-of-gruesome-death problems all by itself.  Almost by accident, she caught the eye of the hulking Amethyst on guard duty; Amethysts and Peridots never spoke socially, and barely professionally, and Kindergarten Gems as a rule were on a much quicker rotation than administrative and tech support Gems, so there was hardly any time to get to know them in the first place.  Still, they shared an unspoken moment of perfect fellow-feeling through a single look: _This is really gonna suck._

Five minutes later, the communication control room’s door slid back and Lady Emerald swirled in.  “Chromite, dear heart, who’s been maintaining my personal terminal these last few days?  The signal’s absolutely wretched, all _fuzzy_.  I want her gem for a hair decoration, whoever it was.”

J223T and her fellow Peridots sat rigidly, eyes front, but it was easy to watch the Troilite System’s absolute ruler in the reflection from the space-dark screen.  Lady Emerald—she didn’t like dealing with other members of her caste, shunned identifiers like _General of the First Tanzanite Fleet_ and _Supreme Commander of the Troilite System_ , and would be referred to only as Lady Emerald, as if no others existed—had conquered seventeen star systems over the course of her military career, which was why the favour of Yellow Diamond had extended so far as to let her rule over an entire star system as though she were a Diamond herself.  The fact that Lady Emerald spent the Gem lives under her command like hydrogen dioxide had gained her somewhat less favour, and was the reason why she ruled a relative backwater like Troilite System: Yellow Diamond rewarded results, but she wasn’t an idiot.  Working under Lady Emerald was implicitly understood to be a hardship posting.  If you survived a few centuries under her, you got yourself a promotion and a nice cushy Homeworld rig with roomy quarters and an entertainment block.

Right now, to J223T, that was looking like a very big _if._

“Pull up the transmission, primary screen,” Chromite said to J223T, who complied with trembling hands.  As she automatically broke down the code to allow the encrypted transmission to process properly on a public station, she watched Lady Emerald drumming her fingers impatiently on Chromite’s abandoned station console, while her Pearl fussed about in perfect silence, fixing Emerald’s unbelievably luxurious dress and unbelievably luxurious hair into perfectly symmetrical points.

Peridot J223T had never spent much time around Gems with the stature to own a Pearl before, but she knew in theory how Pearls were supposed to work.  They were _designed_ to be perfectly obedient, perfectly devoted, perfectly _everything_ to their patron-mistress.

So what kind of sicko needed all that _and_ perfect silence?  From a _Pearl?_

J223T filed that under _things not to think about, especially now_ as Emerald’s eyes passed over her, as idly as if she were furniture, and then flicked upwards to the screen as it snapped to life, every pixel reality-perfect.

Well, on _their_ end.  The Gem on the other end was using some coprolite-y ancient-ass transmitter with terrible sound.

The Gem on the other end was also a Jasper.  Not a new one, not from the look of her uniform and how she carried herself.  She looked like she’d recently been through a war, and she looked pissed, but then, most Kindergarten Gems just tended to have their faces like that.  She surveyed the Peridots, the Amethyst, Chromite, the silent Pearl, and then finally Lady Emerald, and her lip wrinkled like she’d just had something nasty sprayed in her mouth.  _“Oh, it’s **you**.  I sent this transmission to Yellow Diamond.”_

Almost unwillingly, J233T and her counterparts shifted a little in their seats to look, for the explosion, for the sudden and impressive eruption of creative cruelty, because _nobody_ talked to Lady Emerald like that, _ever._

Lady Emerald just…looked puzzled, then recognition dawned and she _beamed_ like she was getting a fix-box from a long-lost friend.  “Why, if it isn’t Yellow’s little _Noreena!_ Well, I say “little” advisedly.  My, but you look an absolute fright!”

The Jasper actually _sneered_ at her.  _“Are you blocking off Yellow Diamond’s transmissions from the Crystal System?”_

Lady Emerald held her hands out with a little grin.  “It does rather look like that, doesn’t it?”

_“Why?”_

“Goodness, I’d think it would be obvious, dear.  That’s what I always liked about you, you were one of the _smart_ ones.”

The Jasper’s snarl was suddenly wiped with blank realization. _“You were tracking Peridot’s mission.  Because of Lapis Lazuli.”_  

Shrug.  Smile.  Lady Emerald’s smiles always had a few too many teeth for comfort.  J223T had heard other Gems call her mesmerizing, but then, so were black holes.  “One has to keep one’s hearports to the deck.  And I have hearports _everywhere_.”

The Jasper digested this in silence, and then drew herself up and lifted her chin.  _“Go stick your head in an elliptical pulverizer, you sick little rock-riding sadist.  Lapis is gravel, the mission’s done for, and I have a message for the Empire; if it has to go through you, well, I guess it doesn’t matter if it takes a trash scow or a Diamond-Class battle cruiser as long as it gets there.”_

J223T allowed herself one direct look at Lady Emerald’s face, and then hid under her console; it was a tiny bit gratifying to see that the other Peridots had done the same.  Less gratifying was that the Pearl had plastered herself against the wall behind her mistress’ back and was trembling from head to toe.

Lady Emerald’s smile was a smile in name only by now.  “If you can dispense with your _badly miscalculated_ chest-beating and get to the point.”

 _“You want my point? **Fine.**   The Empire is a broken armature of lies and shattered Gems.  Gemkind is stagnating in its own self-importance.  The only “growth” we achieve is by way of tumours like you.  And you want to know the best part?” _The Jasper leaned in close to the screen, baring her teeth.  _“We failed.  The Crystal Gems are fully operational, and_ Rose Quartz lives.”

Peridot J223T could muster up just a little hatred for his Jasper for this, through the fog of her fear.  Just _witnessing_ vaguely seditious talk was enough to get you the mallet.  This maniac was talking about…

…about what?  Crystal Gems?  Rose who?  _Things not to think about things not to think about…_

“And apparently, so do you,” Lady Emerald said conversationally.  “I don’t suppose I need to spell out all the ways I’m going to…rectify that.”

 _“Kiss my ass.  You’ll have to find me first.”_ The Jasper reached off-screen and crushed something noisily with one hand.  The entire signal promptly went on the frizz, and the Peridots all had to scramble back to their stations and work madly to stabilize the image and audio feet.  Jasper turned back to the screen with a maniacal grin.  _“Oh, and when you do?  You’ll have to go through_ me _to get to_ them.  _My personal guarantee, Emerald.  You can take that one to Yellow Diamond as well.  You think I was bad to go up against before?  I was fighting for a_ farce. _Come see how I fight when I have…something to look forward to.”_ Her smile edged up into the range of ‘demonic’.  _“Oh, right, but you’ll have to_ find _me first.  I smashed Earth’s system alignment beacon; good luck re-mapping the entire Crystal System.  It’ll take you years.  Oh, but don’t worry.  I’ll wait.”_

The screen went dead.

Despite Gems not having lungs, everyone in the room held their breath, waiting to see what came next.

Eventually, Lady Emerald said to her Pearl, “Do stop shivering, it’s very unbecoming.”  And then to Chromite: “Have Golden Apatite report to me immediately.  If she’s on a mission, I want her to drop it.  This takes precedence.”

“She will have difficulty locating the specific planet within the Crystal System without the beacon, Lady Emerald,” Chromite said.

“She certainly won’t!  It’s her old shooting-grounds, why, she loves it there.  She’ll be able to carry a fresh beacon with her, in the interests of the Empire.  That’s her official reason for deployment.”

“And her assignment while she is on Earth?  If I must recall her from a mission, she may request details on the unofficial reasons.”

“Yes, I know she can be very charming that way,” Lady Emerald said, and for the first time Peridot J223T had had enough exposure to her commanding officer to read the unspoken _she’s a poisonous little so-and-so who doesn’t know how to toe the line, but she’s too dangerous to put a leash on, so she has to be lured with games and dainties instead_ in her tone of voice.  “Tell her I want the Lapis Lazuli back, alive and intact, and…hah, the Jasper as well, yes, I think so.  Feel free to mention Rose Quartz.”

“That will be necessary to the mission parameter.  Even Golden Apatite would be hard-pressed to evade Rose Quartz, let alone confront her.”

“Oh, Chromite, sweet, Rose is _dead._ Didn’t you see our poor little friend’s eyes?  Her precious rage-engine is gone, and she’s lost, but not _completely._ Something—some _one_ —has taken Rose’s place.  Not a full contender, but…an interesting geode, perhaps.  Someone who just needs a little…breaking.”  Lady Emerald’s smile became nightmarish.  “I’ll let you handle the collateral, love, you’re always so neat and tidy.  Ta-ta for now.”  She turned and left, followed immediately by her empty-eyed Pearl, whose delicate fingers were still shaking.

J233T, the Amethyst, and the other Peridots looked up at Chromite, who drew a frankly enormous battle-axe out of her gem and considered its edges, tested its weight. 

One of the other Peridots whimpered.

“All four of you will be immediately sent to the Hypersthene System for short-term memory re-conditioning.  Their facilities are more refined than ours, so you will suffer no long-term damage to your ability to perform your duties.  You will continue with your careers unhindered, in different systems, provided you go in silent obedience.” Chromite leaned on her axe and stared at them, unblinking.  “I assure you, your eventual fate is preferable to mine when Yellow Diamond discovers the extent of Lady Emerald’s indiscretion.”

To her embarrassment, J233T started crying with relief, which seemed to just make Chromite even more saturnine, so she sucked in air forcibly until she’d stopped _leaking,_ and five minutes later she went to get her things under escort.

It occurred to her, on the shuttle out to the inter-system transport, that she’d never had anything drive her besides fear—of consequences, of stepping out of line—and that she couldn’t imagine finding something with such a powerful magnetism that it could compel a Gem to fight past that fear and burst out the other side.  She thought of Chromite, and of the strange Jasper, probably for the last time: one a virtual automaton, the other obviously crazed and probably cracked.

She was lucky, J223T thought as she was escorted out of the shuttle and onto the transport ship, to go have a part of her life erased: she only lived propelled by the normal kind of fear.  It could be worse.  She could be Emerald’s Pearl.

She could be Lapis Lazuli, whoever _she_ was, when Emerald got her hands on her.

No, J233T reasoned, all in all, she was lucky.

* * *

 

Jasper made a point of crushing the remains of the system beacon, which had been hidden in one of the Homeworld’s many secret caches and trap-filled fox holes left behind as a final “screw you” to Rose Quartz and her forces.  When it was virtually indistinguishable from dust, she left, punching out the keystone pillar on her way out to collapse the cache entirely and crush its communication equipment.  She emerged, covered in dust, to find the desert gone dark and the sky overhead blanketed with stars.

The nearest warp pad was around seventeen miles away, give or take.  She’d have to walk, and think about whether she’d made the right call or just done something monumentally stupid; neither of those were things she enjoyed.

No, she decided after a mile, it was the right call, and she’d been lucky, in a way.  Emerald was a twisted piece of shale, sure, but she played stupid games; she would waste time running intrigue where she should call in a fast, aggressive strike, and Yellow Diamond wouldn’t hear about this for months, maybe years, until Emerald had had her fun.  And it would take Homeworld years on top of that to blanket the galactic arm with scanner ships, pick through system after system until they found the right one.  What was the human phrase?  Needle in a haystack, that was it.

Humans were slow to get going, and wasted years being weak and floppy and generally useless, but once they were at full maturity, they were agile, and relatively dangerous.  If the Quartz bra—

If Rose’s—

If _Steven_ was half-Gem, that physical maturity should line up with him attaining full command of his powers.  That wouldn’t stop an invasion fleet on its own, but…

 _I am not going to **let** anyone die, you hear me, _he’d said.When she’d tried to murder the kid outright not two days before that.  While he was in a fusion with a full-blooded human who, sensibly from Jasper’s point of view, wasn’t exactly Jasper’s biggest fan.

“What the hell are you, brat,” Jasper muttered to the silent desert.  “What the hell are you going to _be?”_

The desert provided no answers, so she kept moving, under stars she would never get close to again.  A traitor, she decided after another mile.  She’d needed to announce it; now it was out there, instead of clawing in her chest like a maddened animal.

At one point she stopped and palmed a lump in her uniform shirt.  Some small part of her regretted taking it.

Never mind; she’d give it back someday.

Jasper put on the headphones from Greg’s walkman, pressed ‘Play’, and kept moving.

_“…rode a tank_

_Held a general’s rank_

_When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank_

_Pleased to meet you_

_Hope you guess my name, oh yeah…”_

* * *

**_Steven Universe’s Bedroom, 13 Days Later_ **

Steven woke up to find a seashell on the shelf by his bed, next to the picture of Connie.  It was a nice one, and he was sure it hadn’t been there before.  He didn’t mention it to the Gems, although he tried to bring it up with Connie during what Connie insisted on calling their “half-hour probationary phone call”.

 _“You’re being so overdramatic about this,”_ Steven overheard Dr. Maheswaran grumbling in the background.

_“Mom, I am not!”_

_“I rest my case!  And by the way, you two had better start wrapping up, we’re leaving for the viewing in twenty minutes.  Doug, I’m really not sure about this place,”_ Dr. Maheswaran went on, her voice fading as she apparently left the room.  _“The realtor keeps talking about how it’s “cozy” and “heritage” and you_ know _that just means it’s tiny with bad plumbing and no central heat…”_

 _“Mom’s been talking to her director about opening a branch clinic of the hospital in Beach City,”_ Connie whispered once her mother was out of earshot.  _“She thinks I don’t know, but she could actually end up working in the same town as Dad!  We’d be_ staying _here,”_ she went on, her voice trembling with suppressed delight.

Steven forgot about the seashell in his excitement, and demanded pictures of Mr. Maheswaran in his new “bodyguard” suit with cool-looking sunglasses.  Connie sent them along with the hashtag #mydadisjamespond, which made Steven and Mr. Maheswaran both laugh and bought Steven and Connie an extra five minutes of phone time.

* * *

 

That night, Steven left his bedroom window open, but when he woke up the next morning, there were no new seashells, although there was an ocean breeze blowing into the house that made everything smell like salt and fish and all the things Steven associated with really good almost-end-of-summer days.  He had bacon pancakes with Amethyst, and watched Pearl picking apart and fiddling with his dad’s old cell phone, a clunky flip model that had been dropped into a tide pool two years ago.  He bugged Garnet into a beachfront workout, went combing for quarters, and visited Pee Dee at the Fry Shack.

In the middle of passing over Steven’s customary bag of fry bits, Pee Dee paused.  “Oh, hey, uh, you’re welcome to say no to this, but Ronaldo wants to form a Wyverns and Wishing Wells group…”

Steven gasped, eyes going wide and sparkly.  “A WWW group?!”

“Yeah, he wanted to know if you and Connie were interested, and, uh, he’s kind of dragged me into it…”

“Who’s gonna be the DM?”

Pee Dee tapped his own chest.  “Yours truly.  He thinks I make good dungeons.  Also, he wants to know if you can bring Peridot, but I totally understand if that’s not gonna happen.”

Steven thought about this for a little while, and then managed to smother a giggle.  “Ohh man.  Yes, yes I can.  I bet she’ll love it.”

“She’s a super-intelligent space alien who created artificial life,” Pee Dee protested.  “I’m not sure she’d be interested in…”

“She’s already played and beaten all my video games, even the really hard old ones where you die and have to go back to the very beginning,” Steven said quickly.  “She says they’re way too easy!  You know what she really likes?  Kitchin Kalamity!  She says it combines an engrossing combination of skill, luck, and resource management!  She gets kind of grumpy if she doesn’t win, but then, so does Garnet.  We’re working on that!”

“Oh.  Well, Ronaldo’s gonna be happy, anyway.  He’s called dibs on being a magus.”

“…they’re gonna fight over that, aren’t they.”

“I think that’s Ronaldo’s plan, honestly.”

“I call being the bard!”

Pee Dee offered Steven a genuine smile at that.  “Colour me super unsurprised.”

* * *

 

Steven had planned to pay a visit to the Big Donut after that, but when he approached the glass front, he could see Lars and Sadie having a very involved talk about _something_ with Kiki and the Cool Kids, so he decided to leave them be.  Lars actually looked happy, and while Sadie was blushing a lot, she was still laughing and holding her own.

He turned away and found Lapis, perched on one of the terrace tables, looking at him like she was afraid he was going to bite.  “Um.  Steven.  Hi.  I…”

Steven made a high-pitched noise and flung himself at her, knocking her off the table and onto the sand.

* * *

 

“So, you’ve been stalking me,” Steven said cheerfully.  They’d been walking up and down the beach for almost an hour, back and forth, almost three full circuits of the peninsula with a side-trip to the lighthouse.

Lapis turned bright blue.  “No?  Except, yes.  Kind of.  I wasn’t…sure you’d be happy to see me, after the way I ran off on…no, of course you’re happy to see me,” she said, faced with Steven’s injured look.  “I was just scared.”

“Of me?”

“NO!  No, no no no.  I just…ugggh I’ve been such an _idiot.”_ Lapis suddenly dropped to the sand and pulled her knees up to her chest, throwing up her arms in disgust.  _“Steven, I’m so terrible, I don’t deserve for you to care about me,_ wow.  Just… _wow._ ”

“Yeah, that was pretty not true,” Steven agreed, sitting down next to her and trying for a yoga style.  “Ow, my legs.”

“I didn’t even give you a _chance,”_ Lapis muttered.  “I just panicked and ran away like I always do.”  She looked sidelong at him.  “Steven…I know the Crystal Gems live with you, or, you live with them, they’re your family.  Is…that what family means to you?  Being together all the time?”

“Huh?  No!  I mean, I don’t live with Dad anymore, _he’s_ still my family.”

“What about…seeing each other every day?  Is that a ‘family’ condition?”

“Nope!  Connie hasn’t seen her grandparents on her mom’s side in years, they still live across the street from her grandpa’s hospital in Hyderabad!”

“Okay, because…Steven, I.”  Lapis sucked in a breath.  “I’ve found my hot dog—okay, no, I can’t keep going with that metaphor, it’s too weird.  I’ve found my—pizza?  Fry bits?  But I can’t…”

“I understand.”  Steven reached out and patted her shoulder.  “You don’t want fry bits every day!”

Lapis relaxed all at once.  “Yes.  Yes, that’s…exactly it.”

“Well, _I_ want fry bits every day, but I’m what Pearl calls a statistical outlier there.”  Steven carefully took Lapis’ hand.  “Do you want to say hi to the Gems?”

Lapis looked torn for a moment, then steeled herself.  “Yeah.  I do.”

* * *

 

Amethyst punched Lapis in the ribs, and then hugged her tightly, and then punched her again, all while crying messily and calling her names.  Steven had to separate them; Lapis rubbed her sides, then patted herself down and produced something.  “I brought you a whoopee cushion.”

Amethyst crossed her arms and eyed it narrowly.  “I’ve already got like a hundred of ‘em.”

“I’m sorry, Amethyst.”

“Don’t just _leave_ like that without saying _goodbye_ , you dumb blue troll,” Amethyst bellowed at her, “you made Steven _cry!”_ A minute later she uncrossed her arms and hugged Lapis again.

“This is really starting to hurt,” Lapis said through gritted teeth to Steven.

“Just accept it as a condition of your returning to the fold,” Garnet said.  “Metaphorically speaking.”  She examined Lapis for a minute, and then said, “Want to stay for pizza?”

Lapis smiled weakly.  “Uh…sure.  Thanks.”

* * *

 

At Steven’s insistence, they held the pizza party in his loft; Connie got special parental permission to attend, and Greg picked up the pizzas and half a box of napkins, mostly for Pearl, who twitched every time someone dripped grease on Steven’s bedspread.

“So what have you been doing all this time?” Connie asked Lapis.  “I really really hope you haven’t just been hiding at the bottom of the ocean.”

Lapis rolled her eyes.  “No thanks.  I’ve been…looking around, mostly.  Old Gem landmarks, that kind of thing.”

“A lot of them aren’t in the best repair,” Pearl admitted.

“The Temple of Time was a mess.  Somebody must have taken off with the wrong hourglass, _and_ it looked like people had been fighting down there.”  Lapis hesitated, and then added, in a much smaller voice, “I stopped at a human settlement.  A _huge_ one.”

Pearl winced.  “Yes, um, that must have been fairly traumatic…”

“No, it wasn’t, I mean, there was something there called a _gallery?_ Just…a place for artists to have their work?  So other humans can go look at it?  _Any_ other humans, not just their patrons.  It was so weird.”

There was a pizza-y silence.  Finally, Garnet said, “You broke in, didn’t you.”

“I just opened a hatch in the roof during the night.  I didn’t _break_ anything.”  Lapis suddenly looked very far away.  “There was a human painting in there that was just of…stars over a city.  It was a _mess,”_ she added.  “All blobby and uneven, except it… _felt_ like night should look like.  I can’t explain it.  I just sat there for hours staring at it.”  She chuckled suddenly.  “Pretty dumb, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Connie said.

Lapis was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t think I can live in Beach City with you…with all of you.”

Garnet nodded.  Connie winced.

“But…I want to take a look at this world again.  I feel like I want to experience it, not just…endure it.  There’s so much here that I missed, or that I just never saw, because of, um, circumstances, or because I was just busy feeling sorry for myself.  I spent three days with a whale pod, Steven, I never realized whales had such an elabourate system of communication and I spent all this time in the ocean or _using_ the ocean…” Lapis turned and squinted at Amethyst.  “Don’t.”

“Don’t what,” Amethyst grinned, wiping her mouth on her arm.

“I see you planning a whale pun, don’t do it…”

“It’s very important for you to have a whale-rounded experience while you’re on Earth,” Greg said solemnly.

“And you spent so much time stuck in that mirror, you’d probably _eel_ bad just staying in one place all the time,” Steven added.

“I should soak both of you,” Lapis said.

“Aww, _water_ you so mad about,” Amethyst smirked, and the pizza party broke up as a jet of water hit her in the face.

An hour later, Dr. Maheswaran drove up on the beach to find Steven, Connie, and Amethyst in a squirt-gun fight with Lapis and losing badly.  She retrieved her daughter, who waved goodbye sadly, and then had to wait when Lapis suddenly dropped her weapon and ammunition, ran over, and gave Connie an awkward hug that mashed Connie’s face into her collar bone.  “I’ll come back.”

“You had better,” Connie said, extricating herself and squeezing Lapis’ shoulders.  “Pearl and I haven’t finished your training.”

Dr. Maheswaran sighed deeply.  “I’m still not sure about her not having any valid certification as an instructor.”

“Mom, she’s got personal testimonials from Tomoe Gozen, Charlemagne-le-lion, _and_ Jeanne de Clisson…”

“Yes, and look what happened to them!”

Steven watched Connie and her mother get in the car and drive off, and then turned to Lapis and Amethyst.  “Who wants to watch a movie?”

“ _Evil Bear 2_ ,” Amethyst said with a wicked grin.  “You’ll love it, Lapis.”

“No!  Anything except that.”

“ _Evil Bear 4: The Hiber-Nation?”_

“Amethyst!”

* * *

 

They spent the rest of the evening watching _Shark Teeth,_ which Lapis and Amethyst criticized and made fun of at length.  Garnet and Pearl joined them; Pearl was still tinkering with Greg’s old phone, and Garnet’s only contribution was “That shark looks familiar.”

Eventually, Peridot took a break from systemically trolling TubeTube commenters and deleting Mayor Dewey’s enormous backlog of spam e-mail to join them.  At one point, when the action was at its height and the monster shark was moments from devouring an innocent family of four, she turned to Lapis and said, “So, what, not flying off into space again?”

“No.”

Peridot digested this.  “Okay.  Why?”

Lapis shrugged.  “It’s…not such a bad planet, once you spend a little time getting to know it.”  She watched Pearl reach out to automatically cover Steven’s eyes as, on-screen, the shark dragged a screaming teenager off his paddle-board.  “Everyone I care about is here.”

“You’re a weirdo, Lazuli.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“…touché.”

Lapis nodded, and turned back to the screen.  “Steven, sharks never do that.  If you ever run into a shark, bop them on the nose.  They hate it.”

“I don’t think anybody likes being bopped on the nose,” Steven agreed.

* * *

 

 Lapis left again the next morning.  Greg drove up to see her off with the Gems and Steven, and offered her a hug, which she accepted.

Amethyst sidled up to her, punched her in the shoulder, and said, “If you don’t come back at least once a month, Bob, I’mma find you and kick your butt.”

Lapis grinned and punched her back.  “I’ll come back and deliver a huge jellyfish.  Drop it right on your head.”

“Cool.  Also, I didn’t even _feel_ that.  You’d better start bench-pressing dolphins or whatever, noodle arms.”  Amethyst gave her a quick hug around the waist and patted her arm.  “Be careful.”

“This from you,” Lapis said, and turned to Pearl.  The two of them exchanged uncomfortable looks, and Lapis took a deep breath.  “So, uh…”

Pearl held out Greg’s old phone.  “I made you this,” she said quickly.  “It’s not gem-powered, it works off solar energy, and it _should_ sustain a consistent signal unless you took it into, say, the Marianas Trench.  It should survive being dropped, submerged, frozen, set on fire…you get the idea.”

Lapis took the phone and opened it upside-down, squinting.  “What’s…this looks like Connie’s…?”

“It’s so you can keep in touch with Steven while you’re away,” Pearl said, turning it right-side up and pointing to various features.  “Optional GPS for when you want to send Steven location, a camera for taking pictures, and this is for texting, it’s where humans send each other short sentences.  I’ve already programmed in Steven and Connie’s phone numbers, and Greg’s as well, just in case, although I don’t think you want Lion’s and…I don’t even know why Lion has a cell phone in the first place.”  Pearl hesitated as Lapis stared at it.  “Do you…like it?”

Lapis looked away, looked down, and suddenly teared up.  “I really do.  Thank you.”

Pearl covered her mouth and visibly swelled up with pride.  “If anything ever happens to it, just ask, I can make you a new one in a minute now that I have the prototype design on file!”

Garnet, impassive, handed Lapis a bag and a card.  “This is waterproof.  And this is a lifetime membership pass to the Louvre.  Rose got it when she wrote to them and asked how come nobody told me my portrait was in there.”

“It is?”

“The _Mona Garnet,”_ Garnet said calmly.  “The lips follow you around the room.  Hey, I’m not using it,” she said when Lapis gave her a confused look.  “If I want to see myself looking good, I can just look in the mirror.”

“And now you have a bag,” Steven said, “you have to take Sea Explorer Gal with you.”  He pressed the plastic half-sphere into Lapis’ hands.  “She hasn’t explored any seas yet, so you have to get on that right now.”

Lapis held Sea Explorer Gal in her hands for a moment, staring at her, and then tucked her carefully into her bag, crouched down, and kissed Steven’s forehead.  “I’ll be back.”

“I know.  I’ll be here!”

Lapis hugged Steven tightly, then stood up.  “I’m so bad at goodbyes.”

“Just get going, ya goof,” Amethyst told her, waving her away.

“Then…see you soon.”  Lapis turned, spread her winds, and took off.

They lost her among the scudding clouds and blue sky pretty quickly.  Steven wiped his eyes and touched his forehead, turning to Garnet.  “Does this mean I have water powers now?”

“No.  Only I can do that cool thing.”

“Oh.  Okay.”  Steven glanced around at the Gems and Greg.  “Can we finish that pool party?  I feel like hamburgers.  And water wings.”

“I don’t see why not,” Pearl said.  “Just…not with that awful blow-up pool, please.”

“Let’s bring Peridot,” Amethyst said.  “She’ll look _hilarious_ in a life jacket.”

“As long as she’s _safe_ and hilarious.”  Steven’s phone buzzed.  “Oh, hey, another text from Silica…”

He unlocked his phone to find a text from an unfamiliar string of numbers, with a file attached.

_Just testing!  Am I doing this right_

_Stevenlookimflyingupsidedown.png_

“Oh,” Pearl said, reading over his shoulder, “it looks like she’s getting the hang of this already!”

“Yeah,” Steven said, beaming.  “Yeah, she is.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I want to give you back the open sky_

_Give you back the open sea_

_Open up the ages, darling, for you to see_

_-_ Florence + The Machine, _Landscape_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to take a while: this ride has been AMAZING.
> 
> First, thank you to everybody who left kudos, bookmarked this fic, or even slogged all the way through this monster. I am grateful as hell for your time and patience.
> 
> For my commenters, especially those who've been constants from the first chapter but also to the people who just dropped by when you could, you are as gold to me and I mean it. Without your support and in a few highly valued cases your constructive help and suggestions, I would not have made it this far. I can't overstate how much it's meant to me that people cared enough to have discussions in the comments about the fic, the main SU canon, everything. It's amazing.
> 
> The incredible cricketmilk drew fantastic fanart of Lapis juggling a just-unfused Steven and Connie from Chapter 15, which I forgot to post earlier and which you can find here: http://snakebuttt.tumblr.com/post/130470706056/hello-this-is-definitely-steven-universe
> 
> Credit for the use of [CREEP REDACTED] referring to Jasper as "Noreena" goes to Full-Metal-Ox. It's such a beautiful name I couldn't resist, and you can be sure she hates it.
> 
> There's at least two sequels in the works. They won't be very LONG, two or three chapters at most, but they'll be there, for those of you gnashing your teeth at me for setting up the content from "Ten Earth Standard Days Later".
> 
> Thank you again, everyone who's reading this. Without you this fanfic would not be here.
> 
> ("Sympathy For the Devil" is copyrighted to the Rolling Stones)


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